Goal 3, Priority 1: Engaging a Broader and More Diverse Community
At NCAR, we are committed to increasing the presence of underrepresented groups in our workforce, and to creating an environment that welcomes a diversity of disciplines, ideas, scientific background, and approaches to problem solving. With a rich array of disciplines and a broad outreach component that spans all the laboratories, NCAR provides scientific information to stakeholders, policy makers, and the public. Through international programs, convocations of physical and social scientists, educators, and a wide range of disciplinary skills, NCAR demonstrates its commitment to engaging a broader community in the atmospheric sciences.
FY2007 Accomplishments
In Spring 2007, NCAR and the University of Colorado Diversity Initiative collaborated on a workshop designed to engage graduate students in a series of career planning activities for the express purpose of preparing them for rewarding and productive postdoctoral opportunities in a broad spectrum of science and engineering fields. The workshop was particularly aimed at engaging participants from underrepresented groups in the geosciences. Fifteen graduate students participated in the workshop, along with 15 presenters and panelists.
Click to enlarge. CCB has continued to update its El Niño Web site, most recently producing a Spanish version.
In addition to the above-mentioned effort, CCB has continued to update its El Niño Web site, which ensures that the plethora of existing El Niño resources is put within easy reach of students, teachers, decision makers, etc. The updates include an extensive listing of links to El Niño information in Spanish and, to a lesser extent, Portuguese, was updated and expanded by CCB summer visitors, who coordinated biweekly updates. Several PowerPoint presentations on such topics as El Niño Affairs and Climate Affairs, created by CCB staff, were also translated into Spanish and added to the site.
Click to enlarge.Weather and Society * Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) continued in FY2007. This program facilitates a grassroots connection between meteorology and social science.
Also, a joint SERE/RAL program, the Weather and Society * Integrated Studies (WAS*IS) continued in FY2007. This program facilitates a grassroots connection between meteorology and social science through creation of an interdisciplinary community of practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders who are passionate about establishing this connection. WAS*IS provides this community with opportunities to learn and discuss related tools and concepts at both national and international workshops–to date, 145 people have participated in these WAS*IS forums.
With NCAR support, the UCAR Education and Outreach (EO) office added new bilingual content (in English and Spanish) to its educational site, Windows to the Universe. The Windows to the Universe audience is now greater than 20 million users per year from around the world, with about 25% of the users accessing Spanish-language sections of the Web site. These resources were brought to the attention of bilingual science teachers in workshops in the metro-Denver area, and at regional and national meetings of science education organizations.
Click to enlarge.The “Windows to the Universe” website has added a large amount of bilingual content.
And, as a result, in November 2006, UCAR EO staff was invited to present and share these bilingual educational resources on at the Seventh Annual Convention of Professors of the Natural Sciences in Puebla, Mexico. Also, a session at the Fall AGU meeting on Interhemispheric Collaboration on Geoscience Education in Latin America was convened by the EO team in early FY2006, and was followed by an AGU session at the Spring meeting in Acapulco on Climate and Global Change Education and Capacity Building in Latin America, co-convened by EO and IAI. Additionally, in June 2007, EO reps presented these resources to science educators in Santiago, Chile, at the International Educared Conference, which was attended by approximately 1,000 teachers from across Chile, and at a UNESCO science education conference in Argentina, which included both a workshop and Share-a-Thon.
Click to enlarge.Twenty NCAR female scientists worked with 50 middle school-aged Girl Scouts to learn about science careers.
In September, the fourth annual workshop, Girl Scouts at NCAR: Changing the Outlook on Science, One Girl at a Time, brought 20 female scientists together with 50 middle school girls. Co-organized by NCAR’s Advanced Study Program (ASP) post-docs, NCAR scientists, and EO staff, the scouts had a chance to explore science via hands-on activities, links to World Wide Web resources on weather and climate, and through stories about the scientists’ interests and careers in the atmospheric sciences.
EOL, HAO, and other NCAR staff participated once again in the Expanding Your Horizons Conference at CU Boulder in February 2007. The annual conference was held in the CU engineering center, with close to 200 girls in attendance from schools along the Front Range. The Boulder Branch of the American Association of University Women and the University of Colorado at Boulder organize this event to encourage pre-teen and teenage girls to study math and science, to increase their awareness of the options available in non-traditional careers, and to meet women whose careers depend on math, science, engineering, and technology.
NCAR scientists also participated in the Wonder of Science Saturday, an event held at Boulder's 29th Street Mall, in September 2007. This event provided the public with an opportunity to learn about different scientific organizations in the area, and its primary focus was on science education of children and adults. EOL performed a series of radiosonde weather balloon launches that gave people a rare opportunity to learn first-hand about the technology used to capture atmospheric profiles of pressure, temperature, relative humidity, and wind, and view data collected in real-time.
Click to enlarge.Public outreach sometimes happens in serendipitous ways. Nick Potts, an EOL Engineering Intern from the University of Florida, stands with John Handley, a train conductor from Hickman, Nebraska. Handley is holding a dropsonde he found hanging from a telephone wire on his way home from work one morning in July. After taking apart the dropsonde, which was dropped from the Driftsonde lauched in Wyoming in preparation for the T-AMMA field campaign, he found the name of an EOL Technician on some of the components. A quick web search and a phone call later, and Nick Potts headed off to Nebraska to meet with Handley and retrieve the sonde. Later, the sonde was found to have critical data which helped EOL engineers make final adjustments for the successful T-AMMA campaign.
Students at all levels are a critical audience that NCAR serves. To the greatest degree possible, we try to create opportunities for real-life work/learning opportunities, particularly for students underrepresented in the geosciences. As an example, EOL saw fantastic response to its call for applications to its Summer Undergraduate Engineering program in FY2007. The lab received almost 100 resumes from mechanical, electrical and computer, aerospace, optical, environmental, chemical, and industrial engineering students–15 from women, and six through the National Society of Black Engineers. (The announcement was also posted with the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers.) Four interns were hired, and worked with EOL engineers in Summer 2007.
EOL also emphasizes inclusion of diversity in its hiring practices and has instituted new internal practices in FY2007 to ensure that a measurable and fair process is followed for every new hire. Hiring managers must complete a form outlining how and where the job was advertised, what effort was made to solicit applications from females and underrepresented minorities, and justification for the final interview pool and hire. Also, the EOL Women's Group continues to bring together women at all levels in the laboratory–mechanics, technicians, administrators, scientists, data managers, managers, etc., providing a forum in which women can share experiences and discuss lab topics of mutual interest.
NCAR research and administrative staff again supported the Significant Opportunities in Atmospheric Research and Science (SOARS) program, and other UCAR diversity activities. Twenty protégés from across the United States and Puerto Rico completed the 2007 summer SOARS program. Support for these new and returning protégés came from throughout NCAR, with each of the five laboratories contributing at least one staff or scientist to serve as a mentor. In total, 32 NCAR employees from nine different divisions participated as research mentors, writing/communication mentors, or community mentors.
During the past year, SOARS and CISL continued collaborating beyond the end of the summer program, co-funding protégé Marcus Waldman to carry on work with research mentor Siddhartha Gosh (CISL) during the academic year. This is a promising model for establishing long-term relations between SOARS protégés and NCAR laboratories.
The Societal Impacts Program (SIP), a joint RAL/SERE program aims to provide information that decision makers require. In FY2007, SIP accomplishments include completion of the Overall U.S. Sector Sensitivity Assessment, an empirical assessment of the vulnerability of the major U.S. economic sectors to weather variability. This assessment indicates that annual weather variability causes approximately 3.4% or $260B variability in annual gross domestic product. Building on this work, SIP staff initiated work on sector-specific studies with an emphasis on assessing the use and value of current and improved weather forecasts in addition to sectoral impact of weather. In 2007, this work has been focused on the transportation sector.
In other research, an internet-based survey of 1520 U.S. households nationwide was conducted to elicit information on people’s sources, perceptions, uses, and values for weather forecasts. People’s understanding of, use of, and preferences for weather forecast uncertainty information were also elicited in the survey. Preliminary results indicate that the average household accesses weather forecast information from various sources 115 times a month. Results also show that a majority of people are willing to receive forecasts that contain uncertainty information and that people have preferences for how uncertainty information is conveyed.
Funding from the U.S. Voluntary Cooperation Program Contribution managed by NOAA’s NWS International Activities Office was used to develop the “Primer on Economics for National Meteorological and Hydrological Services”. This primer is primarily intended for members of the weather community with the goal of increasing their understanding of economic methods and their applicability in evaluating both the impacts of national meteorological and hydrological services (NMHS) and the associated benefits and costs of those services.
SIP members continued to lead efforts to integrate social science research in the weather community, supporting activities to develop a social science research agenda on the hurricane warning and forecast system (leading to a special issue of Natural Hazards Review published in July 2007). Members were also instrumental in publication of the first quarterly issue of Weather and Society Watch, a newsletter aimed at building a stronger, more informed societal impacts community.
FY2008 Plans for Strategic Priority 1
Among the FY2008 plans:
- WAS*IS activities began FY2008 with a National Weather Service (NWS) workshop in Kansas City, MO. This event brought together all NWS employees who have gone through the WAS*IS workshop to strategize ways to integrate social science into the NWS paradigm at 120+ weather forecast offices, as well as at the broader organizational level. The SIP will also hold a WAS*IS workshop in Boulder in Summer 2008, contingent upon funding. This workshop will focus on building an interdisciplinary community of practitioners, researchers, and stakeholders, and include discussions of tools, concepts, and methods related to integrating social science and meteorology.
- A proposal prepared for developing an El Niño Affairs program in South America is being distributed to interested parties in the region, in hopes of securing funds in FY2008.
- In the coming year, EO will continue its efforts to promote use of its educational resources by a diverse international community and by individuals historically underrepresented in science. Toward this end, EO will continue Spanish translation of educational resources EO Web sites, including Windows to the Universe, and will continue to move forward on collaborations with science education colleagues in Latin America. In late 2007, EO will offer an expanded BSTARS program with the support of the NSF Opportunities for Enhancing Diversity in the Geosciences program. In addition to the one-day conference for 120 bilingual science educators, there will be a Saturday workshop and distance learning course offered during winter and spring. This year, additional program partners include the Colorado MESA (Math and Science Excellence) program and Univision Colorado (Spanish language News). If successful, this program should be scalable to the national level through the national MESA program.
- EO has also initiated a new Citizen Science program with support from NCAR. One of our new Citizen Science campaigns, Measure Your World, involves close collaboration with science educators in Chile and Mexico to engage learners in three countries on a collaborative project to estimate the Earth’s radius through international teams. This campaign will began in late September 2007.
- EO and ASP plan to continue to collaborate with the NCAR over the coming year to implement the fifth year of the “Girl Scouts at NCAR” program.
- The new SOARS model of continuing interaction between science students and mentors is a promising model for establishing long-term relations between SOARS protégés and NCAR laboratories. SOARS has set aside additional funds to co-fund other protégés to continue their summer research with their host laboratory. Also, the NCAR Diversity Committee is working in collaboration with UCAR to build upon the success of the SOARS program to create NCAR opportunities for graduate students and postgraduates from underrepresented groups.
Related Lab Annual Report Sections:
Goal 3, Priority 1