|
| |
Outreach |
|
| Reaching out to share new discoveries with the public can be a challenge, particularly for a numerical modeller. Meeting this challenge is essential however to creating a culture that values and rewards scientific discovery, and that nurtures and supports young and prospective scientists. Below are some outreach efforts that I am involved with. |
Mentoring Physical Oceanography Women to Increase Retention (MPOWIR)
Despite the investments of time and money in training female physical oceanographers, the rate of change in retention in to the field has not kept pace with increases in recruitment into graduate school. This program acts to support, encourage, and inform women scientists in the early stages of their professional careers to ensure that their desire to pursue a research based program in government, academia, or private industry is the central factor in their professional choices.
My role is to build and maintain the web based component of MPOWIR to aid in reaching early career scientists both male and female who can often be the only oceanographers in their institutions.
|
Oceanography at the University System of Maryland
The USM program in oceanography is split between campuses of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, College Park, the Center for Marine Biotechnology, Baltimore County and Eastern Shore. Combined these program create a broad interdisciplinary oceanography program. This effort seeks to bring together the individuals in oceanography to aid in student recruitment, and to ensure that the diverse expertise fertilizes our thinking and drive new research directions.
I have spearheaded the effort to build a website that brings together information on the individuals at USM who work on issues related to oceanography.
|
Mid-Atlantic COSEE Teacher training
Dr. Laura Murray heads our participation in the Mid-Atlantic COSSEE program to bring science research to teacher training. I participate in this program through speaking about climate patterns and how the atmosphere and ocean interact to drive climate and ocean circulation. You can download a powerpoint (Macintosh created) or PDF presentation here, but be warned that many of the images and figures have not been properly credited to their sources.
|
Horn Point Laboratory Open House
Each year Horn Point Laboratory opens its doors to the public. Recently I have been working on displays that illustrate what a numerical model is using hands on experiences. I have used several freely available Stella modules combined to simulate the effects of population growth, land use, and energy utilization on the carbon cycle, and global warming.
This module allows users to change three variables using simple sliders: the rate of population increase - really the time it takes to zero population growth in the developed and undeveloped world, the fraction of energy that we consume that comes from renewable technologies, and the fraction of land cover devoted to rainforests, marsh, and agriculture. You can download it here, and I would be happy to hear any comments of suggestions you may have.
|
|
