Climate Education Resources
from the Cooperative Institute for
Meteorological Satellite Studies
Margaret Mooney
Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS)
Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC)
University of Wisconsin-Madison
About CIMSS
• CIMSS is a Cooperative Institute between:
– University of Wisconsin-Madison, NOAA and NASA
• CIMSS operates within the UW-Madison
Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC)
• CIMSS & SSEC are renown world-wide for
satellite remote sensing data & imagery
• CIMSS Education and Outreach efforts
prioritizes weather and climate literacy
– http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/education
Advancing Climate Literacy
is a priority at CIMSS
• Teacher
Workshops
Climate
Literacy
at
CIMSS
(dedicated climate strand since 2007 IPCC report)
• On-line climate course for G6-12 science teachers
(2008 debut, Spanish language version added in 2010)
• 2011 launch of the EarthNow Blog
(includes monthly Climate Digest Product)
• 2013 on-line climate course for undergraduates
(in collaboration with UW-Madison AOS department)
• 2014 – Changing Weather & Climate MOOC
(4 weeks with focus on the Great Lakes Region)
3
Applets – updated to HTML5
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/education/
Sun Angle Applet
Milankovitch Applet (Past Climates)
An activity to explore how changes in Earth’s Eccentricty,
Precession and Tilt over the last 400,000 years corresponds
to past climates and proxy data from the Vostok Ice Cores
Make a Planet
Seasons Applet
On-line Climate Change Curriculum
• Based on 2007 IPCC report
(incorporating 2013 data)
• Can print out Certificate
• Lesson plans by teachers
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/climatechange/
Modern Water Cycle Diagram (shows human impact)
with feedback from NOAA & UW-Madison hydrologists
Our water cycle diagram
was included in the 2011
report issued by the
Wisconsin Initiative on
Climate Change Impacts
(WICCI)
CIMSS EarthNow Project
• A blog-style website for NOAA Science On a Sphere
(SOS) presenters to find timely weather and climate
stories with SOS visualizations.
• Allows SOS institutions to develop meaningful visitor
experiences about weather and climate using NOAA
weather, ocean, and climate data.
http://sphere.ssec.wisc.edu/
11
Feature Stories – 5 to date
Climate Digest for mobile devices
Along with producing
large animations for
SOS exhibits, CIMSS
creates small videos
viewable on desktops,
laptops and all mobile
devices.
13
Climate Digest - Global Climate Brief
By watching a Climate Digest video, whether on a
6-foot SOS exhibit or a hand-held mobile device,
viewers get a global climate brief in ~ 3 minutes.
http://sphere.ssec.wisc.edu/20140625/