Using Real-World Data to Increase Students' Scientific Literacy

The future state of the world's oceans greatly depends on the leaders of tomorrow. That's why increasing today's students' ocean literacy is so important and that's why raising students' overall earth science literacy is a primary goal of the American Meteorological Society (AMS). Through the creation of high-caliber, scientifically-authentic educational materials, the AMS offers a suite of introductory, undergraduate-level courses that engage students by investigating current topics in Earth science through the use of real-world environmental data. AMS Ocean Studies, AMS Weather Studies, and AMS Climate Studies have been developed by the AMS with support from NSF, NOAA, and NASA. Designed to be adaptable to traditional, hybrid, or online instructional settings, these courses have already been adopted by 770 institutions across the United States. The recently revised 3rd edition Ocean Studies textbook features updated topics such as the 2011 Japan earthquake/tsunami event, the 2010 Gulf oil spill, ocean acidification, harmful algal blooms, along with a detailed look at the essential role the ocean plays in Earth's climate system. The textbook also reviews the latest technology for monitoring ocean properties including floats and gliders and cabled ocean observatories. Updated yearly, the investigations manual contains 30 laboratory activities, two per textbook chapter, and innovatively connects with a third online component, Current Ocean/Weather/Climate Studies, via the course website. These online investigations use real-world data from NOAA's National Ocean Service (NOS) and Satellite and Information Service (NESDIS), reports from the IPCC, and from other lead scientific organizations. The course website is an all-inclusive webpage that provides links to numerous external sources that further engage students. Instructor support materials are available with each course and include a Faculty CD that contains a faculty manual with learning objectives and suggestions for course implementation, as well as investigations manual answer forms compatible with any course management system, test bank questions and answers, textbook images, and PowerPoint (R) presentations for each chapter. The investigations manual answer forms are files compatible with Respondus (R), test-generating software for which many institutions are licensed (answer forms are also provided in Respondus (R) format). The faculty member has the option of delivering questions through their course management system to allow for automatic scoring and immediate feedback for their students. This feature allows for full integration to a college's e-learning environment. AMS Ocean Studies, AMS Weather Studies, and AMS Climate Studies can be taught by experienced science faculty or those new to teaching the subject matter. Mentoring by AMS-trained course instructors is available to all new instructors.