In the context of introductory courses in physical geography and meteorology, it is common around February 2 for curiosity to arise among students regarding the veracity of "Groundhog Day" predictions. Historically, most instructors' immediate response to such inquiries has been a definitive "NO," emphasizing the impossibility…

We propose the formal inclusion of the K-12 education system as a critical step to achieving the National Weather Service's (NWS) vision of a Weather Ready Nation (WRN). The WRN is a NWS initiative to build resilience within the U.S. population to extreme weather, water, and climate events, and includes considerable research investments in science…

Thundercloud charge separation, or the process by which the bottom portion of a cloud gathers charge and the top portion of the cloud gathers the opposite charge, is still not thoroughly understood. Whatever the mechanism, though, a charge separation definitely exists and can lead to electrostatic discharge via cloud-to-cloud lightning and…

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Weather Radios (NWRs) can be used by education agencies before, during, and after an emergency. The information collected through the NWR may be used to determine which annexes (whether functional or threat- or hazard-specific) should be activated. Furthermore, NWRs may be used to receive…

This study was grounded in the spatial computational thinking model developed by the "3D Weather" project funded by the NSF STEM+C program. The model reflects a discipline-based perspective towards computational thinking and captures the spatial nature of computational thinking in meteorology and the reliance of computational thinking on…

The Precipitating Change Project was a 5-year development, implementation, and research study of an innovative 4-week middle school curricular unit in computational weather forecasting that integrates students' learning and use of meteorology and computational thinking (CT) concepts and practices. The project produced a list of CT skills and…

A STEM education program entitled "Come rain or shine" implemented in a primary rural school in southern Greece as part of the "Diffusion of STEM (DI-STEM)" project and the results of its implementation are presented in this paper. The educational program deepened in weather education and intended to develop eight scientific…

Hurricanes pose significant risk to life and property to communities adjacent to the tropical cyclone basins of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. In the United States, there are significant public misconceptions about hurricane hazards such as wind and storm surge, despite timely and accurate forecasts and warnings. However, appropriate…

Research into early childhood children's understandings in science has a long history. However, few studies have drawn upon cultural-historical theory to frame their research. Mostly, what is known has come from studies which have examined individual understandings of science concepts, without reference to culture, context or the collective nature…

What causes severe thunderstorms and tornadoes? Tornadoes, often accompanied by severe thunderstorms and hail, form in pretty much the same way as severe thunderstorms. In the continental United States, tornadoes usually form in spring and summer, when warm, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico moves across the continent from southeast to northwest…

This paper describes a teaching-learning sequence (TLS) about air pollution and the findings resulting from its implementation by pre-service elementary teachers (PET) currently undergraduate students of the Department of Primary Education in the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. The TLS focused on the relation of air…

A survey with nine meteorological charts, maps, and images from a 2015 significant weather event was administered to meteorologists (N = 93) to identify which spatial thinking skills they report using with each chart, map, and image. Results reveal high reported use of mental animation (74.6%), disembedding (72.4%), and perspective taking (71.6%)…

Students in introductory college science courses often have a simplified understanding of the scientific method. To introduce students to the complexity of the scientific process and the value of empirical observations, I implemented a semester-long assignment that required introductory-level college science students to build and calibrate weather…

The purpose of this research was to explore children's understandings of everyday, synthetic and scientific concepts to enable a description of how abstract, verbally taught material relates to previous experience-based knowledge and the consistency of understanding about cloud formation. This study examined the conceptual understandings of cloud…

High winds and heavy rain are regular features of the British weather, and forecasting these events accurately is a major priority for the Met Office and other forecast providers. This is the challenge facing DIAMET, a project involving university groups from Manchester, Leeds, Reading, and East Anglia, together with the Met Office. DIAMET is part…