National Weather Service

1
NAME Education Module Scope

• NAME is compiling an Education Module for grades
  K-12 with the following three objectives
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.

2
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?

3
NAME Education Module Elements

• Teachers in the Field
• Monograph
• Curriculum, Unit and Lesson Plans
• Teacher Workshop Opportunities

4
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 TIFs 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.

5
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

6

• 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

7

• 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

8
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