UMaine partners with EDC, Mount Washington Observatory and others on NSF-funded project to promote data science education
The University of Maine is partnering with the Education Development Center (EDC) in Waltham, Massachusetts, Mount Washington Observatory (MWO) in North Conway, New Hampshire, and additional partners to help eighth-grade students in rural Maine and New Hampshire learn scientific data analysis and modeling skills. The new WeatherX project is funded by a three-year, $1.19 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
In collaboration with a small group of eighth-grade science teachers in the Mount Washington region, the WeatherX project will design and test eight weeks of classroom materials. The materials will teach students how to analyze and develop scientific prediction models using meteorological data related to an extreme weather event on the summit of Mt. Washington, often called the “Home of the World’s Worst Weather.” Students will also study and model an extreme weather event that has occurred in their rural vicinity.
To conduct their analyses, students will use online data analysis and scientific modeling tools that have been developed for middle and high school students by project partners. They will also draw on decades of publicly available local and regional weather data collected by MWO and the National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI).
EDC is the primary grantee on WeatherX. Asli Sezen-Barrie, assistant professor of curriculum, assessment and instruction, is co-principal investigator and will lead the project at UMaine. Other partners include researchers and developers at the University of Washington and The Concord Consortium in California.
The full announcement is available on the EDC website.
Contact: Casey Kelly, 207.581.3751