TY - JOUR
T1 - Snowflake selfies
T2 - A low-cost, high-impact approach toward student engagement in scientific research (with their smartphones)
AU - Kumjian, Matthew R.
AU - Bowley, Kevin A.
AU - Markowski, Paul M.
AU - Lombardo, Kelly
AU - Lebo, Zachary J.
AU - Kollias, Pavlos
N1 - Funding Information:
The long winters in central Pennsylvania afford opportunities to study the natural variability of snow and collect data useful for education and research purposes through engaged scholarship. As such, we developed a project to incorporate snow-related research experiences into undergraduate courses at Penn State to embrace the aforementioned scientific and societal challenges, natural wintertime laboratory, as well as the much-bemoaned student overuse of smartphones (Aljomaa et al. 2016; Panova and Carbonell 2018) and social media. The “Snowflake Selfies” project was thus conceived, funded through the Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Gladys Snyder Educational Grant. A subsequent adaptation of this type of project at the University of Wyoming (which has even longer winters!) also provided the opportunity to study snowfall properties under different conditions and storm types and engage a broader population of students in snow science.
Funding Information:
Acknowledgments. Funding for the project provided by the Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences Gladys Snyder Education Grant and the Office of the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education. We are particularly thankful to the students of the spring 2018 course of METEO 440W for their hard work and dedication to the project. We thank Stony Brook University for lending us the MRR for the project, and the National Weather Service in State College, Pennsylvania (particularly Michael Jurewicz and John Banghoff), for discussions and communication during the snow events. We thank Dr. Yvette Richardson (Penn State) for helpful discussions on engaged scholarship. Dr. Aaron Kennedy (University of North Dakota) and 2 additional reviewers provided extremely helpful, constructive comments and criticisms that improved the manuscript and will help future implementations of this project. Finally, we are very grateful to Randy Chase (University of Illinois) for first showing us the microscope adapters, which served as an inspiration for the project.
PY - 2020/7
Y1 - 2020/7
N2 - An engaged scholarship project called "Snowflake Selfies"was developed and implemented in an upper-level undergraduate course at The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State). During the project, students conducted research on snow using low-cost, low-tech instrumentation that may be readily implemented broadly and scaled as needed, particularly at institutions with limited resources. During intensive observing periods (IOPs), students measured snowfall accumulations, snow-to-liquid ratios, and took microscopic photographs of snow using their smartphones. These observations were placed in meteorological context using radar observations and thermodynamic soundings, helping to reinforce concepts from atmospheric thermodynamics, cloud physics, radar, and mesoscale meteorology courses. Students also prepared a term paper and presentation using their datasets/photographs to hone communication skills. Examples from IOPs are presented. The Snowflake Selfies project was well received by undergraduate students as part of the writing-intensive course at Penn State. Responses to survey questions highlight the project's effectiveness at engaging students and increasing their enthusiasm for the semester-long project. The natural link to social media broadened engagement to the community level. Given the successes at Penn State, we encourage Snowflake Selfies or similar projects to be adapted or implemented at other institutions.
AB - An engaged scholarship project called "Snowflake Selfies"was developed and implemented in an upper-level undergraduate course at The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State). During the project, students conducted research on snow using low-cost, low-tech instrumentation that may be readily implemented broadly and scaled as needed, particularly at institutions with limited resources. During intensive observing periods (IOPs), students measured snowfall accumulations, snow-to-liquid ratios, and took microscopic photographs of snow using their smartphones. These observations were placed in meteorological context using radar observations and thermodynamic soundings, helping to reinforce concepts from atmospheric thermodynamics, cloud physics, radar, and mesoscale meteorology courses. Students also prepared a term paper and presentation using their datasets/photographs to hone communication skills. Examples from IOPs are presented. The Snowflake Selfies project was well received by undergraduate students as part of the writing-intensive course at Penn State. Responses to survey questions highlight the project's effectiveness at engaging students and increasing their enthusiasm for the semester-long project. The natural link to social media broadened engagement to the community level. Given the successes at Penn State, we encourage Snowflake Selfies or similar projects to be adapted or implemented at other institutions.
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85091456625&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0096.1
DO - 10.1175/BAMS-D-19-0096.1
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85091456625
VL - 101
SP - E917-E935
JO - Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
JF - Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
SN - 0003-0007
IS - 6
ER -