Workshop: summary
Day 1: Meshing Science and Pedagogy
There were three posters presented at the workshop. In what echoes John Marshall's talk, Detlef Quadfasel and Rolf Kaese took an integrated approach to teach about dense overflow. Their poster described a rather unique teaching opportunity where students were not only provided the theoretical background, performed laboratory experiments, and numerical modeling of the laboratory experiments, but were also afforded the opportunity to actually measure evidence of a dense overflow across the Greenland-Scotland ridge.
Galen McKinley's poster was based on her teaching experience at the U of Wisconsin undergraduate courses. Tank experiments were used as either demonstrations or hands-on experiments. The use of tank experiments in the classrooms showed statistically significant improvements in student performance. Hands-on time was the most effective. Several questions were posed: what are efficient and effective strategies for optimizing hands-on time and enhancing demonstrations with more hands-on experiences? How does one expand the use of tank experiments to other classes and/or other professors?
John Pickle's poster described a new citizen science project which provides the framework for digital image acquisition with many applications, including water quality assessment, land use monitoring, and vegetation quantification. The framework consists of a wooden post with an octagonal platform which has 9 positions (8 horizontal, 1 vertical) to take repeat photographs, and a means for uploading the image and metadata. Both are organized and managed online with an easy user interface. Digital imagery offers new hands-on teaching opportunity for climate and environmental sciences beyond traditional fluid dynamics (also shown in Satoshi Sakai's and Scott Kittelman's demos).