UND climate change internship students to showcase video, Webcast projects Tuesday at noon

Who/what: Students from the eight-week UND summer internship “Communicating Climate Change” will present their final video/Webcast projects about climate change. The event is free and open to the public.

When/where: Noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday, July 13, 210 Clifford Hall

From a perch in a tree, University of North Dakota atmospheric sciences junior Korey Southerland videographed her research partner for a science mini-movie about climate change. In another video, her classmate William Crawford, an UND atmospheric sciences major in his fourth year of a five-year program, worked some media magic, playing a TV newscaster in one scene and a field meteorologist in another.

The program these two and several othre students were in over the past eight weeks was all about learning how to communicate the science behind climate change through an intense eight-week program co-led by UND atmospheric scientist and computer programmer Gretchen Mullendore and several UND colleagues and Laura Munski, director of the Dakota Science Center.

Southerland, a junior who grew up in Oklahoma City and Minneapolis, is double-majoring in atmospheric sciences and political science with a minor in mathematics, said she found the program when Googling for a compelling internship that would combine her unusual combination of interests.

“It was tough finding programs that combined both of my majors,” said Southerland. “I was very lucky to get into this program at UND. It brought together my interest communicating between science and policy. I’ve learned a lot about climate change and how everything is interconnected. I also learned that you can pull in the policy component into anything connected with atmospheric sciences and climate change.”

The program’s 10 students will present their final video projects Tuesday, July 13, at noon in Clifford Hall 210. Their presentations are free and open to the public.

The internship program—called “Communicating Climate Change”—was funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Global Climate Change Education Program. Students who were accepted into the program each received a $1100 stipend plus free room and board in UND student housing.

Mullendore, a UND Department of Atmospheric Sciences severe storm expert, climate change observer, is the principal investigator on the grant to use NASA data to educate undergraduates about climate change.

Mullendore worked on this project with several UND colleagues, including project co-leaders Andrei Kirilenko, a climate scientist and associate professor in Earth System Science and Policy, and Fred Remer, an atmospheric sciences faculty member and broadcast meteorologist who coached the students in media techniques. Munksi helped the internship students develop resource lists for their work.

“During the program, the interns not only attended the traditional lectures, covering the basics of climatology, but also participated in real research together with ESSP graduate students, gaining a real experience in working with the scientific software, global climate model simulations, and NASA remotely sensed data,” Kirilenko said.

Project Overview:

The Global Climate Change Education project focuses on improving global climate change and Earth system science education at the elementary, secondary and undergraduate levels. NASA’s GCCE project is motivated by recommendations made in the National Research Council report Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond.

This Earth decadal study identifies responding to our changing planet as one of the greatest and most important intellectual challenges facing humanity. The study specifies that both the acquisition of new knowledge about the Earth system and the use of Earth observation data are equally important in meeting the complex challenges of global change.

According to NASA in its acceptance of UND’s proposal for the summer internship, UND has a long tradition of educating students from the Upper Midwest, including under-represented rural and Native American students. UND’s strong programs in atmospheric science, earth systems science and policy, geography, engineering, and teacher education are the foundation of this summer program aimed at educating undergraduates about issues related to global climate change.

Working with faculty, students used NASA Earth observation datasets to conduct research and design webcasts to present their research findings. For example, the Aqua and Terra were used to look at changes in temperature, land use and land cover, and the spread of the polar ice sheet. Students will also use the projections of future climate from global climate change models.

UND Atmospheric Sciences

The UND Department of Atmospheric Sciences—part of the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences—trains students for careers as professional broadcasters as part of the Studio One program, so the production expertise and production facilities for the summer internship program were in place. The Webcasts were created by the students in such a way as to be accessible for non-scientists, and will be posted on the UND Web site for public access.

This eight-week program also aimed to encourage undergraduates to pursue advanced degrees in climate-related fields such as UND’s Earth Systems Science and Policy Climate and Environmental Change master’s degree.

Dakota Science Center

The Dakota Science Center (DSC), a Grand Forks-based educational outreach organization, was also part of this summer program, helping students develop resource lists based on their summer research. Mullendore is a member of the group’s board of directors.

“The program will expand to teacher education and out-of-school programming, including the continuing utilization of web casts created by the undergraduate researchers,” said Munski, DSC director and co-leader on the project. “The second year of the project will involve a UND Department of Teaching & Learning faculty member whose students will develop lesson plans to accompany the web casts. The summer of 2011 middle school science teachers will field test the lessons. The climate change science modules will become a part of the PowerOn! mobile science learning lab, a partnership of DSC and the UND School of Engineering & Mines.”

UND was only one of a handful of schools nationwide that were accepted by NASA into this summer’s program.