Two Northern Vermont University Atmospheric Sciences faculty had their work published in the July 2019 Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS). BAMS is the flagship magazine of the American Meteorological Society (AMS). The peer-reviewed article, Improving Climate Change Literacy and Promoting Outreach in an Undergraduate Atmospheric Sciences Program, outlines the recent implementation of innovative curricular and extracurricular activities related to climate change within the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at Northern Vermont University. The NVU Department of Atmospheric Sciences is at the forefront of improving climate change literacy among the general public through undergraduate education and public outreach.

In the paper, Dr. Hanrahan and Dr. Shafer discuss the importance of improved communication between experts and nonexperts for meaningful climate action to be realized. To achieve this, we expose all Atmospheric Sciences students, regardless of their career pathway, to the science of human-caused climate change. Then, the department encourages students to engage with nonexperts through public events, school visits, and a department-run website, TheClimateConsensus.com. As a result, we have observed a higher level of interest in climate change among students over the past few years. More students have demonstrated a heightened sense of responsibility to engage the public about this challenging topic, and some have expressed an interest in pursuing climate-change-related careers.  

The department thanks Jason Kaiser, Ari Preston, David Siuta, George Loriot, and Dawn Kopacz for productive conversations and helpful feedback. We also thank the faculty and staff at NVU-Lyndon for their enthusiastic support of our efforts. We are appreciative of the work by student recipients of the recently-established Climate Courage Award and Scholarship, Jonathan Hutchinson, Andrew Westgate, and Francis Tarasiewicz, and the donors who made the Climate Courage Award and Scholarship possible, Carl Bayer and Sheila Reed. Finally, we thank all of the former and current Lyndon Atmospheric Sciences students who have demonstrated courage by speaking out about climate change science, especially Arianna Varuolo-Clarke and Kayla St. Germain, who prompted the creation of the Climate Consensus Group in 2014.

Upward Bound and BREE students recently visited the Northern Vermont University-Lyndon Department of Atmospheric Sciences and had the opportunity to launch weather balloons! Students in both of these groups are interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Education, and Mathematics) fields.

About Weather Balloons

Every 12 hours, hundreds of people in places around the world launch huge, white balloons into the sky. The balloons float upward, each tethered to a box of instruments that collects data about the temperature, humidity, and winds in the atmosphere. These are weather balloons. The boxes of instruments are called radiosondes. The data that radiosondes collect is used in weather models to improve weather forecasts. The Department of Atmospheric Sciences at NVU-Lyndon launches weather balloons to gather data during hazardous weather situations (for example, severe thunderstorms, freezing rain, etc.). This data is also used in several Atmospheric Sciences courses. We also welcome the opportunity to launch weather balloons for visitors, like the Upward Bound and BREE students.

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The Upward Bound program is a national college-preparation program that offers free educational, cultural, and social activities for eligible high school students from low- or modest-income families who will be the first in their family to attend college. The Upward Bound students got a chance to launch a weather balloon. These students are specifically interested in STEM fields and/or attending Northern Vermont University. A couple of students said that Atmospheric Sciences especially interested them.

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Atmospheric Sciences student and NVU-Lyndon Admissions Student Office Professional Peter Kvietkauskas led a tour of the NVU-Lyndon campus, including stopping by the News7 studio. Dr. Hanrahan and Dr. Preston then talked with the students about the Climate Change Science and Atmospheric Sciences degrees, as well as describing experiential learning opportunities and storm observation field experience that Atmospheric Sciences students have.

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Three undergraduate students, Ann Marie Matheny from Indiana University Bloomington, Connor Zwonik from the University of Vermont, and Giorgio Sarro from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, recently visited NVU-Lyndon and had a chance to see what goes on in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences. This included launching a weather balloon. As the weather balloon rose, they also discussed the weather data from the radiosonde. These students are working with faculty and graduate students on the transdisciplinary BREE (Lake Champlain Basin Resilience to Extreme Events) research program. These three students are summer interns through the Vermont EPSCoR (Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) Center for Workforce Development and Diversity, which works to cultivate and prepare students in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields.

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