NAME Education Module
Scope
NAME is compiling an Education Module for grades K-12 with
the following three objectives:
1.
For students to recognize that there is a summer monsoon in the
Southwest and (especially for those that live there) it is relevant to their
lives because of the scarcity of water in the region.
2.
For students to realize that improved understanding of the monsoon can
lead to better rainfall forecasts, hence a better ability to manage scarce
water resources.
3.
Understanding the monsoon helps student to link weather and climate,
and provide an explanation for weather extremes (e.g. floods, tornados,
hail) that people care about.
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NAME Education Module
Approach
Key Issues at the Outset:
• What teaching materials are useful at different grade levels?
• How will the materials address standards?
• How should the module be packaged and disseminated? What is the
proper mix of printed, video, cd, and web-based materials?
• How will the materials be evaluated? How will feedback be acquired
and used to modify the module?
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NAME Education Module
Elements
 Teachers in the Field
 Monograph
 Curriculum, Unit and Lesson Plans
 Teacher Workshop Opportunities
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NAME Teachers
In the Field
NAME is sponsoring two “Teachers in the Field”
Rhonda Feher is an elementary school teacher from Kayenta, Arizona. Her
school is located on the Navajo Nation reservation .
Josephina Hinojos, teaches high school biology and chemistry at Centro de
Estudios Tecnologicos in Sonora, Mexico.
NAME TIF’s will travel to Tucson in mid-July and join with the North American
Monsoon Experiment (NAME) researchers there. Later they will travel to the other
operations center at Mazatlan, Mexico where they will fly aboard the NOAA P-3
aircraft and visit the NCAR S-Pol Radar.
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North American Monsoon
Monograph
The North American Monsoon
Table of Contents
•Why Predict the Monsoon?
•What is a Monsoon?
•A Case Study
•Monsoons and Climate
•Learning from the Past
•Winds, Precipitation, and Food
•When the Winds Reverse
•How the Land and Sea Affect the Monsoon
•Global Consequences of Monsoons
•Monsoon Prediction
•How Predictions are Used: An Example
•Looking Ahead
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North American Monsoon
Curriculum, Unit and Lesson Plans
Steve Uyeda, a 9th Grade Earth Science Teacher at Sunnyside High School in
Tucson, will develop lesson plans on the North American monsoon addressing
questions across four science strands:
Strand 1: weather
and clim ate
Strand 2: The
monsoon season and
society
Strand 3: The
monsoon season and
the natural
land scape
Strand 4 Monsoon
storm prediction
Question 1 When does
the rain fall in the U.S.
and Mexico?
Question 1: What part of
the regional economy
depends on the rainfall?
Question 1: What
animals and plants live
in mo nsoon regions?
Question 1: What
weather conditions
cause the monsoon
season?
Question 2: When does
the rain fall in the U.S.
and Mexico and how
much falls?
Question 2: How is this
part of the economy
related to precipitation
trends seen in Strand 1,
Question 4?
Question 2: What
adaptations allow these
organisms to live here?
Question 3: Why does
so much rain fall in the
summer mo nsoon?
Question 2: What
atmospheric conditions
cause mo nsoon storms?
Question 3: How do
agencies alert the public
about dangerousΣ
monsoon storms ?
Question 4: How has
this rainfall amo unt
changed over time?
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North American Monsoon
Curriculum, Unit and Lesson Plans
Initial Set:
10 lesson plans
Targeting middle school range (6th-9th grade)
Drafted by October 1
Future:
Expand to other grade levels
Targeting elementary school range (K-5th)
Timing TBD
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NAME Education Module
Timeline
Phase 1: Summer 2004
• First Draft of Monograph (July)
• Teacher in the Field Completed (August)
Phase 2: Fall 2004
• Monograph Completed and Posted on Web (September)
• Lesson Plans & Activities for Middle School Completed (October)
Phase 3: Winter-Spring 2005
•Product Evaluation
Phase 4: Summer 2005
• Workshop to Teach the Teachers
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