Educational Experiences in Atmospheric Science Field Campaigns: A Community Workshop

One important way that atmospheric scientists research phenomena on Earth is through observations, often done in field campaigns, with ground-based or airborne measurements. For students, this is a unique opportunity to learn about scientific observations, instruments and engineering challenges, but up until now student teaching during field campaigns has been often ad hoc and not studied or informed by best practices.

A collaborative and multi-institutional team of atmospheric scientists, social scientists, and atmospheric science education researchers will come together with a common goal of advancing understanding of how students and early career scientists think and learn through authentic, experiential learning in the discipline. Through this workshop, this project seek to bring together this diverse community of researchers and scientists to learn from one another, to identify knowledge gaps across communities, and to explore potential research questions about student learning in field campaigns and field work settings specific to the atmospheric sciences.

The project seeks to improve the understanding of how students learn under the unique conditions of atmospheric science field campaigns, both physically and mentally, and when and how that learning is optimized, to intentionally support and integrate early-career training and development. Field campaigns provide fertile opportunities for education researchers to address questions related to student learning, cognition, effective pedagogy, development of science identity and integration into a community of practice.

In return, field experimentalists and scientists can benefit greatly from the work of education researchers in their field, especially regarding how to best design field campaigns that effectively engage students in the science enterprise. Through mutual learning, workshop participants will identify ways in which field campaigns can advance learning and provide education researchers the space to analyze student learning, while staying true to the scientific mission.

This project seeks to expand the reach of the atmospheric science education research community beyond the traditional classroom setting while also increasing awareness of potential student learning opportunities within field campaigns; potentially identifying paths to integrating student learning into atmospheric science field campaigns in a way that will lead to improved integration of early-career training in field campaigns while supporting the science goals of the campaign. Student participation in field campaigns is widely acknowledged as an important part of atmospheric science education and training programs.

However, no one has systematically studied how effectively these experiences achieve goals related to student learning, identity, inclusion, and developing professionalism. Consequently, it is not known if field campaigns improve the student experience or what practices we might employ to increase the efficacy of these experiences. The workshop is the first step in developing evidence-based practices for use with field experiences.

Specifically, this will advance our knowledge and understanding of how students learn atmospheric science in field settings. By the end of the workshop, the goal is to develop a statement paper for the community that highlights the learning gaps within the current field campaign model and identifies opportunities for embedding education research in atmospheric science field campaigns.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.