University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)
The UCAR Center for Science Education (UCAR SciEd) serves the geoscience community by amplifying and complementing the work of the National Science Foundation’s National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) member universities by reaching our audiences: K-12 educators, university faculty, students, and the public through excellence in educational programs and experiences.
Ask me about…
- Real People, Real Climate, Real Changes, a traveling exhibition that will resume its tour when it is safe to do so.
- “Meet the Experts” virtual programs with atmospheric scientists
- Ozone Bioindicator Garden Citizen Science Project
- Project Resilience
- GLOBE Weather
Becca Hatheway
Manager of Teaching and Learning
UCAR Center for Science Education
Hatheway@ucar.edu
303.497.2597
Let’s Collaborate!
Ozone Bioindicator Garden Citizen Science Project
Did you know that ground-level ozone is a serious pollution problem? Although ozone is invisible, its effects can be observed on the leaves of certain plants. Ozone sensitive plants develop symptoms on their leaves that we can see, telling us when high levels of ozone are present in the air around us. Because they provide this information, they are called bioindicator plants. However, there are still lots of questions when it comes to ozone and plants:
- What ozone concentrations cause damage to plant leaves?
- How severe does the damage get?
- Is it the same everywhere?
Scientists are trying to understand the answers to these questions. Will you help us by collecting data? Your observations of ozone damage will help answer these questions.
Project Resilience
Project Resilience is a new high school curriculum that includes:
- lessons about environmental change that is impacting the Gulf Coast region of the United States
- a Resilience Planning Toolkit that can be used with students in any region to help research and develop plans to address environmental challenges in their local community
The Project Resilience curriculum is organized into seven required lessons, with the optional additions of a field trip and/or eighth lesson. View and download the curriculum online here.
GLOBE Weather
GLOBE Weather is a free five-week Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) aligned middle school curriculum about weather at local, regional, and global scales, providing opportunities for students to examine weather phenomena, collect and analyze weather data, and create models to demonstrate their understanding of new concepts.
By using a storyline instructional approach, students progressively move through the lessons while exploring questions and discovering answers that lead to more questions and opportunities to learn more.
