Climate change is a major concern to undergraduate students. Understanding climate change relies on an understanding of polar regions. However, courses on polar regions are rare at undergraduate institutions. Polar ENgagement through GUided INquiry (PENGUIN) modules were designed to give students experience with polar research in a variety of…

Learning in asynchronous online environments has gained importance over the last several decades, and educational environment shifts from the COVID-19 pandemic appear to have increased this need. Science educators and students need information about which approaches work in the asynchronous environment where informal feedback tends to be reduced,…

Polar research plays a vital role in developing our understanding of Earth's climate system. It is intrinsically interdisciplinary, lending itself to integration into existing undergraduate courses. Here we explore introducing undergraduates to polar research through computational guided inquiry (CGI) modules taught in a variety of courses and…

Active, student-centered pedagogies such as project-based learning (PjBL) can offer significant potential for engaging undergraduates with complex sustainability issues. Driven by institution-wide curriculum changes and informed by educational theories and evidence from previous studies, a trial PjBL activity was designed and delivered on three…

Science education can build a bridge between research carried out by scientists and relevant learning opportunities for students. The Broader Impact requirements for scientists by funding agencies facilitate this connection. We propose and test a model curriculum development process in which scientists, curriculum developers, and classroom…

We present a user-friendly, data-driven Web site (http://thermal.gg.utah.edu/facilities/epo/) for a geothermal, climate change observatory that is educational for the general public, students, and researchers alike. The Emigrant Pass Observatory (EPO), located in the Grouse Creek Mountains in northwestern Utah, gathers both meteorological data…

An Earth science professional-development program for in-service middle- and high-school teachers increased participants' content knowledge about weather, climate, and climate change in addition to increasing their confidence in their assessment and teaching skills. The curriculum and funding gave them time, funding, and the help of content and…

This study reports on an effort to illustrate the coupling of educational research with ongoing curriculum development to promote effective and evidence-based online learning. The research findings have been used to inform the "EarthLabs" curriculum development team as they revise existing modules and create new modules, in order to…

This paper describes a new severe weather laboratory exercise for an Introductory Weather and Climate class, appropriate for first and second year college students (including nonscience majors), that incorporates inquiry-based learning techniques. In the lab, students play the role of meteorologists making forecasts for severe weather. The…