To: gsh-weather
From: cschutte@k12.cnidr.org (Carla Schutte)
Subject: October 5 Videoconference
Conference Participants-
Thank you for your prompt response to my message. Here is the revised agenda and information you will need for the conference on October 5.
Conference ID - 196 Please do not share this information as we will have a full house.
Phone Bridge - For this conference we will be using a conference phone bridge rather than Maven. We can hold 10 participants for the audio bridge. I have not heard from Laurie at LaCosta in CA - but we should be able to hook up all of those who have sent an RSVP and are listed below. A big "THANK YOU" to Don Mitchel at NSF and Marti at Sprint for arranging the phone connection time for us! The Conferenence phone number will be 1-800 ............
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The Weather Cluster of the Global Schoolhouse Project will be hosting an International Conference event on October 5, 1994, which will be used along with footage from other schools and technology sites across the US to produce a Finnish Television show about technology in the United States.
Mr. Steve Ambrose will be our guest speaker for this conference. Mr. Ambrose is a co-founder of the International Weather Watchers organization. The IWW has published information about the Global Schoolhouse - Weather Cluster activities and student research information in their Weather Watchers publication. Mr. Ambrose works for NOAA and has been involved in trying to bring more resources to the education community through the Internet, using the resources and data available at NOAA. He will talk to the conference participants about "Blue Skies" - the Web's interactive weather browser and how students and teachers can use their own observations to add to the weather data available over the Internet. Students will be able to interact with Mr. Ambrose and will have an opportunity to ask their own questions about the weather and resources available for students as they work on their collaborative research projects.
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Participating sites as of October 4, 1994:
Those who have sent a RSVP to date indicating they wish to observe or to visit for a short time as space permits -
Don Mitchel - NSF
Barbara Pederson in North Carolina
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Time: 1:30 - 2:30 EST
Reflector: K12 Cnidr (Conference ID required)
Phone Bridge: There will be a conference phone bridge provided for all sites who have returned an RSVP to date. That information will be sent to you via email Thursday morning if you have not already received it.
Agenda: Please review the agenda and note questions from your site in advance so we can try avoid duplicates. A question and answer period will be provided - depending on time. (We will try to follow the requests of the Television crew and producer and so if we stray from the agenda a bit, please bear with us.)
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Introductions and Roll Call
1:30 "Roll call" to see who is online and to ask each site to give their school name, location and tell what grade level or group is participating.
1:40 Introduction of Mr. Ambrose
1:45 Presentation on topic - Weather Observations and Resources
Time for questions and answers will be provided. Mr. Ambrose will stop and offer schools an opportunity to respond to information or ask questions as he goes. Please hold up a sign with a question mark on it - or have someone who is at your computer type in the word QUESTION so we know that you would like us to permit time for your question or comment about a portion of the presentation.
If time permits we will open the session up to general questions about weather, weather forecasting, or NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) at the end of Mr. Ambrose's discussion.
2:20 Time for students to interact with Finnish TV reporters or for student questions.
2:30 Closure and final comments
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Try to decide on 2 or 3 questions students might ask Mr. Ambrose about general weather information so if time permits they will know what they want to ask him. Listen to other groups and be sure NOT to ask a questions which someone else has asked or a question about a topic he has already covered.
If students have not seen Blue Skies it might be helpful to have them view it briefly before the conference or have it up and running during the conference. I would not suggest loading in movies during the actual conference as they can take awhile to load. Blue Skies can be downloaded from K12.Cnidr.org if you do not have it already. If you need help doing this, let me know.
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Questions which might be good to have students ask:
Please send me email to let me know if there are special questions students from your site have for our guest.
Are the satellite pictures on Blue Skies the same ones scientists use to predict the weather?
Do you see any changes in the weather patterns which might be affecting the overall climate in different parts of our country? (This could be tied to the seemingly increasing number of natural disasters - flooding and severe winter storms and tornadoes being reported.)
Can hurricanes be forecast far enough in advance to warn people so they can get to a shelter or different location?
Why are some areas of the country more likely to have severe tornadoes than others?
Why are some areas of the United States likely to have more severe lightening storms? (Florida seems to be heavily affected by lightening and has numerous deaths each summer.)
What weather instruments or types of observations are the most useful for predicting the weather for someone who is not a scientist or meteorologist?
How can computers and technology help a meteorologist?
Will technology help more in the future to do even more accurate predictions?
What type of storm or natural disaster is the hardest to predict?