The NWS Modernization Program and increased capabilities in computer power and vis software have played major roles in the advancement of our understanding of mesoscale processes during the decade of the 90's. These rapid advancements in technology knowledge, however, leave a fundamental problem: How do we transfer this knowledge undergraduate students in preparing them for their future careers within the constraints of typical 4-year undergraduate education? One approach is to equip classrooms with workstations for instruction which are capable of displaying imagery and forecast fields, and a second approach is to provide a learning environment and courses which encourage students to think independently and critically about atmospheric processes that they can observe through technological advancements. The Department of Meteorology at Penn State has met the first approach by providing a modern classroom with advanced workstations for use with our synoptic and mesoscale courses and has initiated action to attack the second approach by introducing a Topics in Mesoscale Meteorology Course to challenge students in an independent study environment. The objective of this proposal is to strengthen the learning environment for independent thinking in conjunction with our collaborative undergraduate research program with the NWS. One significant deficiency in fully implementing the second approach has been the absence of Departmental workstations for use by students in our collaborative research facility collocated with the State College NWS office. This proposal requests resources for equipment to correct this deficiency and to strengthen our undergraduate collaborative research program in mesoscale meteorology. One of three workstations will be configured to process NEXRAD level II data from the Central Pennsylvania NEXRAD radar and the other two workstations will be configured with software for observing and visualizing mesoscale processes.
