Education Case Study
Project Summary
Yarker Consulting and m2lab.org were asked to create an online course to supplement an undergraduate planetary boundary layer class.
The goal was to help the students design an experiment, set up and run a forecast model, and analyze the results.
The entire class worked together on the semester-long project, which ended in a collaborative effort to draft a scientific paper ready for peer-reviewed publication.
The Challenges
While observations are a critical component for testing, evaluating, and modifying science concepts, there are limits to the amount of data available because equipment is expensive, so stations are spread over large distances and collected only at specific time intervals.
Computer models provide additional, detailed information where data is sparse, so that the combination of theory, observations, and model simulations give us the most thorough understanding of the atmosphere possible.
At the end of the semester, the students worked as a team to compare and contrast the textbook concepts with the observed and modeled data.
The Results
At the end of the semester, the students’ combined effort established some novel research findings for their region. With the help of their professor and m2lab.org, the students wrote a scientific paper that was ready to submit to a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
Additionally, the successes of this collaboration were presented and published in the proceedings of the American Meteorological Society’s 2015 Annual Meeting.
