CIMSS Student Workshop Encourages Scientific Careers
“Great Day! Learned a lot about earth sciences that I have never heard of before.” – Student comment.
CIMSS held its annual Student Workshop on Atmospheric, Satellite, and Earth Sciences on 23-27 June 2013. Eleven students from Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin were treated to a five-day series of workshops, seminars, and hands-on science work while living in dorms on the UW-Madison campus. They went on field trips to a local television (WKOW) weather office, to the Aldo Leopold Nature Center, and to Devil’s Lake State Park.
This year’s Workshop was the 21st in an annual series to offer students the chance to work directly with scientists and professors in the fields of meteorology, astronomy, remote sensing, and geology.
In 1991, CIMSS Senior Scientist Bill Smith and recently retired SSEC Executive Director of Science Tom Achtor submitted a proposal to the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium and received the funding to create the workshop.
1997 – Executive Director of Science Tom Achtor conducts a meteorological instrumentation session
for the CIMSS Student workshop.
“In those first years,” Smith recalls, “each student was accompanied by a teacher. That is no longer true, but the Workshop has remained pretty much the same since Tom and I started it. The goal was to interest the kids in science, and it worked. We got some students that went on to study here. The teachers got a good science education out of it as well.”
NOAA Researcher Gary Wade was also part of the Workshop from the very beginning.
“What is unique about our program,” Wade says, “is the attention that the students get. They work with the scientists on a one-on-one basis. From the beginning I have been handling the McIDAS component. We train them on the software and then assign them a project. We had five groups, some using GOES data or MODIS data. William Straka’s group was looking at the day/night band on the Suomi NPP. Kaba Bah showed his group what was coming on the ABI on GOES-R. Jolene Feltz’ group was looking at the Moore tornado. But it isn’t all meteorology; they also take a look at astronomy and geology.”
“The WKOW-TV 27 tour was excellent. Brian Olson was a great guy and the green screen activity was awesome.” – Student comment.
CIMSS Outreach Specialist Patrick Rowley, in his third year of running the Workshop, says, “While we are always trying to increase the size of the applicant pool, we like to keep the size of the Workshop at about 12 students. We could cast a wider net, and increase the number of students, but then we would lose the really valuable personal contacts that are made between the students and the scientists.”
CIMSS Researcher Derrick Herndon led one of the more popular segments. He split the group up into teams, presented them with data recorded from a real hurricane, and had the teams predict the storm’s course and severity. The team that came closest to the actual storm’s history won the competition.
AOSS Professor Ankur Desai presented “Getting Hot and Bothered for Greenhouse Gas” in the 15th floor Eco-Meteorology lab. After a talk about air chemistry, different greenhouse gases and how they are measured, he took the group up to the roof and took samples.
Ankur Desai with Workshop students.
Director of CIMSS Education and Outreach Margaret Mooney, who has worked with the program since 2002, applauds the wide-ranging participation of researchers and administrative staff that make the Workshop possible.
“It’s one of those ‘It takes a village,’ situations,” Mooney says. “So many people in the AOSS Building, 20 of them this year alone, participate. It’s a whole building event. CIMSS, SSEC, AOS, all participate. We had five professors, several grad students, and AOS lets us use their computer lab.”
One piece of good fortune this year was the scheduling of the regular Wednesday evening Science Alliance for the University lecture. AOS Director Jon Martin gave a talk about tornadoes that the Workshop students attended.
Rowley says, “It was just coincidence that Jon was speaking, but we have arranged to have him give the Science Alliance lecture during the Workshop week next year as well. The students liked it because it was a real event and not just aimed at them. And it worked out well in another way – Tom Zinnen, who schedules the 'Wednesday Night at the Lab' series, has a daughter who will be attending next year.”
“The tornadoes talk with Jon Martin was awesome.” – Student comment.
Graduate student Kyle Nelson was not only the group’s chaperone (spending nights with them in the dorm), but also ran a McIDAS session and went along on their field trips. Britta Gjermo and Carissa Bunge, along with Gary Wade, hiked with the students at Devil’s Lake. Maria Vasys and Britta Gjermo handled accommodations and arrangements for the students.
The CIMSS Student Workshop has been sharing the exciting nature of scientific research with high school students for 21 years. The majority of graduates from the Workshop have gone on to pursue careers in science.
Margaret Mooney says, “The purpose of the Workshop is to share the fun of science; to attract young people to science.”
“This camp ROCKS!” – Student comment.
Mission accomplished.
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