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Geosciences Web Sites

Assembled for the Summer Workshop: Shaping the Future: Unidata Users as Leaders

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These sites were recommended by members of the Unidata community as noted.

Atmospheric Science

Title	Author	Institution	Recommended By:	Educational Level	Description
*Cold Fronts Aloft*	Steve Koch	NC State	Steve Koch	Undergrad	Cold Fronts Aloft tutorial. This web page contains background material, case examples of CFAs, and quizzing.
*Cold Fronts Aloft*	http://www2.ncsu.edu/eos/info/mea/mea715_info/CFA_Tutorial.htm
Jets and Fronts Conceptual Models	Steve Koch	NC State	Steve Koch	Undergrad	Jets and Fronts Conceptual Models (probably the best done of Steve's web sites from a pedagogical perspective, contains many colorful conceptual models & NWP model analyses):
Jets and Fronts Conceptual Models	http://www2.ncsu.edu/classes/mea444-sekoch/
*Radar meteorology class online*	Mike Biggerstaff	Texas A&M	Steve Koch	Undergrad	Mike Biggerstaff's radar meteorology class online (great stuff here):
*Radar meteorology class online*	http://www.met.tamu.edu/class/Metr475/Lab475.html
*Lightning Links*	Bard Zajac	Colorado State CIRA	Linda Miller	Something for everyone	This is a set of links to sites that have various kinds of information on lightning
*Lightning Links*	http://www.cira.colostate.edu/ramm/visit/lightning_links.html
*PALS*; Partnerships to Advance Learning in Science	Many	Iowa State	Doug Yarger	Mainly undergraduate	The PALS server is a resource for educators everywhere. Many constructivist resources are currently being developed on this website and some of them are being implemented in classes at Iowa State University. Includes Biology and Soil Scien modules.
*PALS*; Partnerships to Advance Learning in Science	http://www.pals.iastate.edu/index.html
*Weather Information Center*	Staff	Millersville University	Eric Horst	General	MISSION: To promote Millersville Meteorology and to communicate weather information to the general public by providing data, weather forecasts and expert commentary to media and other organizations
*Weather Information Center*	http://snowball.millersv.edu/~wic/
Introduction to Weather and Climate: AOS 101	Steve Ackerman and staff	University of Wisconsin Madison	Tom Whittaker	Undergraduate Survey	Online introductory course
Introduction to Weather and Climate: AOS 101	http://mapmaker.meteor.wisc.edu/%7Ejbrunner/ackerman/web101.html
*Suomi Virtual Museum*	Staff	University of Wisconsin Madison	Tom Whittaker	General	This site is under construction. In the end, it will form the basis of a Virtual museum dedicated to the life's work of Verner E. Suomi -- inventor, mentor, and tinkerer.
*Suomi Virtual Museum*	http://profhorn.meteor.wisc.edu/wxwise/museum/
*Collection of interactive applets*	Steve Ackerman and Tom Whittaker	University of Wisconsin Madison	Tom Whittaker	Undergraduate	The latest in highly interactive teaching & training aids
*Collection of interactive applets*	http://profhorn.meteor.wisc.edu/wxwise/
The Forecast Factory	John Knox	NASA Goddard Instituted for Space Studies	John Knox	Introductory Undergraduate	This experiment in interactive learning draws from the real-life origins of modern weather forecasting as a means for having students role-play the various stages of the forecasting process.
The Forecast Factory	http://www.giss.nasa.gov/edu/factory/
*Agricultural Weather Center*	Staff	University of Kentucky	Tom Priddy	Varied	The University of Kentucky agricultural weather web site serves university specialists, various government agencies and all 120 county Cooperative Extension Offices in Kentucky.
*Agricultural Weather Center*	http://wwwagwx.ca.uky.edu/
*Introduction to Atmospheric Environment*	Jeffrey K. Lew	UCLA	Devin Kramer	Undergraduate	A survey course on meteorology for the non-science major
*Introduction to Atmospheric Environment*	http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/AS3/as3.html
*Oklahoma Climatological Survey*	Staff	Oklahoma Climatological Survey	Ken Crawford	General	The Oklahoma Climatological Survey is dedicated to providing Oklahomans not only weather and climatological data, but the knowledge to apply these data to their needs. Many of the instructional materials used at OCS are available online.
*Oklahoma Climatological Survey*	http://www.ocs.ou.edu/
*Climates and Weather Explained: Shorticles*	Bart Geerts	University of Wyoming	Bart Geerts	Introductory undergraduate	Survey of Atmospheric Sciences: over 400 short articles summarizing recent research in atmospheric sciences, written as a resource for an introductory course on atmospheric sciences. Access via keyword search or the content structure of "Climates and Weather Explained"
*Climates and Weather Explained: Shorticles*	http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/notes.html
*World Wide Weather and Climate*	Bart Geerts	University of Wyoming	Bart Geerts	Undergraduate	Links to climate and weather, organized by topic, and intended for college students.
*World Wide Weather and Climate*	http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/www/g002.html
*GOES Project Science*	GSFC Staff	NASA Goddard Space Flight Center	George Huffman	General	Lots of goodies from GOES data for general users.
*GOES Project Science*	http://rsd.gsfc.nasa.gov/goesb/chesters/web/goesproject.html
AOSS 202: The Atmosphere	Perry Samson	University of Michigan Go Blue	Perry Samson	Undergraduate	The course begins with the formation of the Earth. How was it that the earth's atmosphere first formed and then became the air we now know and love?
AOSS 202: The Atmosphere	http://www.engin.umich.edu/class/aoss202/
*UM Weather*	Staff	University of Michigan	Perry Samson	Undergraduate	Connecting You To The World Of Weather. The site that helped first catalog the plethora of weather webs sites.
*UM Weather*	http://cirrus.sprl.umich.edu/wxnet/
*Radiation Fog*	COMET Staff	COMET	Pat Parrish	Operational weather forecasters	The goal of this training module is to help you increase your understanding of how radiation fog forms, grows, and dissipates. Such understanding, in turn, can help you more efficiently and accurately evaluate the ability of a given atmospheric environment to generate and/or maintain radiation fog.
*Radiation Fog*	http://meted.ucar.edu/fogstrat/ic31/ic311/index.htm
*Mesoscale Convective Systems: Squall Lines and Bow Echoes*	COMET Staff	COMET	Pat Parrish	Operational weather forecasters	This module describes the physical processes and conceptual models of these types of mesoscale systems.
	http://meted.ucar.edu/convectn/mcs/
*Weather World 2010*	Staff	University of Illinois	Stuart Wier	Undergraduate introductory	WW2010 (the weather world 2010 project) is a WWW framework for integrating current and archived weather data with multimedia instructional resources using new and innovative technologies
*Weather World 2010*	http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/home.rxml
*Weather Widgets*	Staff	Weather Widgets .com	Stuart Wier	General	Learn about the weather, Explore the mysteries of our environment!
*Weather Widgets*	http://www.weatherwidgets.com/
*WWW Virtual Library*	Staff	Penn State University	Stuart Wier	K-12	Meteorology: Compendium of K-12 Educational Sites
*WWW Virtual Library*	http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~owens/WWW_Virtual_Library/edu.html
Web Weather for Kids!!	UCAR Staff	UCAR	Stuart Wier	Kids	Simple "do-at-home" experiments to learn what thunderstorms are all about. "Teachers might want to check out the Resource lists at the end of each of the activities, and the Teacher Tips page."
Web Weather for Kids!!	http://www.ucar.edu/40th/webweather/
*Weather for Kids*	Staff	National Weather Service Tulsa	Stuart Wier	Kids	Helpful weather-related links for both teachers and students.
*Weather for Kids*	http://www.nwstulsa.noaa.gov/weather_kids.html
*National Severe Storms Laboratory's Weather Room*R	Staff	NWS NSSL	Steve Richards	Kids, parents, and teachers	A wonderful resource on severe weather as well as basic weather.
*National Severe Storms Laboratory's Weather Room*R	http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/edu/
*Resource Listing for Weather and Climate Instruction*	Staff	NWS NSSL	Steve Richards	Teachers and the general public	A great listing of numerous resources for teachers (and the general public) such as audiovisual materials, printed material, instruments, software, etc. Have a look!
*Resource Listing for Weather and Climate Instruction*	http://www.nssl.noaa.gov/resources/
*LSC Meteorology Department Bookmarks and Links*	Staff	Lyndon State College	Bill Fingerhut	Undergraduate	Contains pointers to materials for 10 Lyndon State classes along with many other useful bookmarks.
*LSC Meteorology Department Bookmarks and Links*	http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu/classes/index.html
*NCEP ETA FORECAST METEOGRAMS*	NCEP Staff	National Centers for Environmental Prediction	Geoff DiMego	General	Forecasts of surface variables and vertical profiles of cloud and wind are available for over 1100 stations within the Eta domain.
*NCEP ETA FORECAST METEOGRAMS*	http://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/mmb/meteograms/
*COASTAL WIND PROFILER PAGE*	NPS Staff	Naval Postgraduate School	Chuck Wash	General	Creative displays of wind profiler and buoy data from the Monterey Bay region and other parts of California
*COASTAL WIND PROFILER PAGE*	http://www.weather.nps.navy.mil/profiler/coastprof.html
*Meteorological Calculators*	Shing Yoh	Kean University	Shing Yoh	Undergraduate	This web page contains programs (with explanations) and links to basic numerical calculations commonly encountered in Meteorology education.
*Meteorological Calculators*	http://hurri.kean.edu/~yoh/calculations
*Real Time Weather Information*	Shing Yoh	Kean University	Shing Yoh	General	Kean University's effort to provide real time weather information on the Web and provides redundant links to other real time weather sites.
*Real Time Weather Information*	http://hurri.kean.edu/~yoh/meteorology/weather.html
Alistair B. Fraser's Pedagogical Materials	Alistair B. Fraser	Penn State University	Jim Steenburgh	Undergraduate	Extensive interactive material on the computer which used in the classroom to help communicate ideas. Many of the more recent pedagogical resources are available on the web so that students can make full use of them in the dormitory or home.
Alistair B. Fraser's Pedagogical Materials	http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/cv/
*Interpreting Weather-Satellite Images*	Dave Dempsey	San Francisco State University	Dave Dempsey	Undergraduate	An Introductory Meteorology Lab Exercise created for the 1997 Unidata workshop using COMET's instructional exercise templates and fine-tuned some more after that.
*Interpreting Weather-Satellite Images*	http://twister.sfsu.edu/m101/satlab/
*California Regional Weather Server*	Dave Dempsey	San Francisco State University	Dave Dempsey	Weather aficianados	Weather maps and images created locally using software from the Unidata Program Center and data from the National Weather Service.
*California Regional Weather Server*	http://virga.sfsu.edu/
*Jet Stream Analyses*	Dave Dempsey	San Francisco State University	Dave Dempsey	Weather aficianados	Four weeks' worth of full-sized [64KB] and smaller [27KB] Eastern Pacific and North American maps, plus full-sized [80KB] Northern Hemisphere maps
*Jet Stream Analyses*	http://virga.sfsu.edu/crws/jetstream.html
*Composite Weather Maps*	Dave Dempsey	San Francisco State University	Dave Dempsey	Weather aficianados	Pressure Fields, Infrared Satellite Images, and Weather Observations in real time
*Composite Weather Maps*	http://virga.sfsu.edu/crws/press.html
POES: Introduction and Background	COMET, NESDIS, CSU-CIRA Staff	COMET	Patrick Dills	Operational weather forecasters and Atmospheric Sciences majors	Module provides an introduction to the products and applications that are available from meteorological polar-orbiting satellites (POES). These include visible, infrared, and microwave imagery and derived products.
POES: Introduction and Background	http://meted.ucar.edu/poes/index.htm
*POES: Microwave Products and Applications*	COMET, NESDIS, CSU-CIRA Staff	COMET	Patrick Dills	Operational weather forecasters and Atmospheric Sciences majors	Module focuses on microwave remote sensing fundamentals and resulting applications using data from the AMSU and SSM/I instruments. Included are descriptions and examples of both operational and experimental microwave products available to the meteorological community.
*POES: Microwave Products and Applications*	http://meted.ucar.edu/poes2/index.htm
POES: Soundings	COMET, NESDIS Staff	COMET	Patrick Dills	Operational weather forecasters and Atmospheric Sciences majors	Module describes the different sounding products available from NOAA polar-orbiting satellites. Guidance is provided on integrating POES sounding data more effectively with observations from other platforms to improve operational forecasting activities.
POES: Soundings	http://www.meted.ucar.edu/ist/poes4/index.htm
*USA Today Weather*	USA Today Staff	USA Today	Rajul Pandya	All levels	A commercial site (there are ads all over), but the content here is similar in tone to the USAToday weather book.
*USA Today Weather*	http://www.usatoday.com/weather/wfront.htm
*MM5 Cyclone Visualization*	SCD Staff	NCAR SCD Viz Lab	Rajul Pandya	Introductory students	A beautiful set of MM5 visualizations of a midlattitude cyclone. Useful for giving a integrated 4d view of a cyclone; introductory students especially have trouble integrating different cross sections into a coherent picture.
*MM5 Cyclone Visualization*	http://www.scd.ucar.edu/vg/MM5/cyclone.html
*OSU Weather*	OSU Atmospheric Sciences	Ohio State University	Chris Hennon	All levels	An exhaustive source of graphical and textual weather data for meteorologists and the general public. The site will not be ready until July, but when it is done it should be one of the better general weather web sites out there:
*OSU Weather*	http://twister.sbs.ohio-state.edu/

Oceanography

Title	Author	Institution	Recommended By:	Educational Level	Description: URL
*Oceanworld*	Several authors, coordinated by Prof. Bob Stewart	Texas A&M	Ben Domenico	Mainly for K-12 Teacher Training, but much of the material could be used at other levels.	A collection of data and evaluated educational materials for K-12 teachers. "Note to Teachers - By no means are we attempting to reinvent the wheel in producing educational materials. We just hope to add more spokes. All links in this site have been reviewed using criteria we developed for evaluating web pages."
*Oceanworld*	http://oceanworld.tamu.edu
The NDBC Science Education Pages	NDBC Staff	National Data Buoy Center	Stuart Wier	General	The premiere source of meteorological and oceanographic measurements for the marine environment.
The NDBC Science Education Pages	http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/educate/educate.shtml
*Ocean Remote Sensing*	Staff	Johns Hopkins University	Stuart Wier	General	At this site, we present rapidly processed estimates of sea surface temperature for various regions. The imagery includes both single pass data and composite data from multiple passes. We have included at this site a Primer on the measurement of sea surface temperature
*Ocean Remote Sensing*	http://fermi.jhuapl.edu/avhrr/sst.html
*SATELLITE RADAR FOR WAVEHEIGHT AND WINDSPEED MEASUREMENT*	Trevor Page	Lancaster University Environmental Science	Stuart Wier	Undergraduate	Recently the utilisation of satellite platforms has revolutionised oceanographic studies, including the measurement of waveheights and windspeeds: from wave characteristics.
	http://www.es.lancs.ac.uk/es/people/teach/sjl/GEPH323/CW97/T_Page/WEBA.HTM

Solid Earth

Title	Author	Institution	Recommended By:	Educational Level	Description: URL
*Introduction to Geophysical Exploration*	Tom Boyd	Colorado School of Mines	Ben Domenico	Undergraduate "We are currently using this course to teach junior-level geologists and petroleum engineers at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM)."	"We will describe a World Wide Web-based cross-disciplinary course built on the use of hypothetical scenarios ... to teach the fundamentals of geophysical exploration."
*Introduction to Geophysical Exploration*	http://www.mines.edu/fs_home/tboyd/GP311/

Hydrology

Title	Author	Institution	Recommended By:	Educational Level	Description: URL
Precipitation Estimation from Remotely Sensed Information using Artificial Neural Networks (PERSIANN)	Soroosh Sorooshina et al.	University of Arizona	Ben Domenico	More research oriented	"An artificial neural network (ANN) model is being developed to estimate hourly rainfall rates..."
	http://www2.hwr.arizona.edu/persiann/

Space Science

Title	Author	Institution	Recommended By:	Educational Level	Description: URL
Windows to the Universe	Many, coordinated by Roberta Johnson	University of Michigan	Ben Domenico	Content level is controllable. Includes teacher training materials.	"Purpose is to develop a fun and different Web site about the Earth and Space sciences."
Windows to the Universe	http://www.windows.umich.edu/
*The Stratosphere -- Earth's Guardian*	Dean Morss	Creighton University	Dean Morss	Undergraduate	Created with NSF/Unidata grant
*The Stratosphere -- Earth's Guardian*	http://www.creighton.edu/~damorss/stratos/

Earth System Science

Title	Author	Institution	Recommended By:	Educational Level	Description: URL
*Earthview*	Eric G. Frost	San Diego State University	Ben Domenico	Undergraduate and Teacher Training	A collection of resources for Earth System Science education.
*Earthview*	http://earthview.sdsu.edu
*Global Change Master Directory*	NASA GCMD Staff	NASA Goddard Space Flight Center	Scott Ritz	General	The Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) is a comprehensive directory of descriptions of data sets of relevance to global change research. The GCMD database includes descriptions of data sets covering climate change, agriculture, the atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere & oceans, geology, geography, and human dimensions of global change.
*Global Change Master Directory*	http://gcmd.nasa.gov/
Skymath	Beverly Lynds	Skymath/Unidata	Dave Fulker	Middle School	This is not really Earth System Science, but it is interdisciplinary in that it uses everyday atmospheric science issues to teach math according to the national standards. Specific learning modules are included.
Skymath	http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/staff/blynds/Skymath.html

Phenomena (El Nino, Volcanoes, Hurricanes, Earthquakes...)

Title	Author	Institution	Recommended By:	Educational Level	Description: URL
*Community Hurricane Preparedness*	Many	UCAR/COMET	Ben Domenico	Emergency managers and decision makers	The purpose of this computer-based course, Community Hurricane Preparedness, is to provide emergency managers and decision makers who cannot attend the course with basic information about How hurricanes form The hazards they pose How the NWS forecasts future hurricane behavior What tools and guiding principles can help emergency managers prepare their communities
	http://www.meted.ucar.edu/hurrican/index.htm
Volcanoes Online	Jeroen Jansen, Galvin Sng, Cameron Taggart	Thinkquest Team 17457, working on three different continents	Ben Domenico	Public Education, K-12	"Ever wondered how the structure of the earth was formed? What the heck is Pangea? Why do plates move about? How do oceans and continents form?"


	http://library.thinkquest.org/17457/english.html
Earth Observatory	NASA GSFC Staff	NASA Goddard Space Flight Center	George Huffman	General	General-purpose site intended to provide outreach for EOS activities.


	http://www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov/
Air Pollution	Jeffrey K. Lew	UCLA	Devin Kramer	Undergraduate	An introductory course on air pollution primarily for the non-science major.
	http://www.atmos.ucla.edu/AS2/as2.html
*The GOES Gallery at CIMSS*	CIMSS Staff	University of Wisconsin Madison	Scott Bachmeier	General	A variety of interesting NOAA GOES images collected during our investigations...
	http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/misc/
*Volcano Watch*	SSEC Staff	University of Wisconsin Madison	Scott Bachmeier	General	These satellite images show the world's 10 most active volcanoes, as determined by the Michigan Tech Geology Department.
	http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/volcano.html
POES: Case Studies	COMET, NWS, NESDIS Staff	COMET	Patrick Dills	Operational weather forecasters and Atmospheric Sciences majors	Module contains two short case studies that demonstrate different uses of polar satellite data. The first case example shows how AMSU microwave data can be used to supplement other datasets to improve precipitation forecasts. The second case example demonstrates the TRaP method for calculating rainfall potential from Hurricane Georges.
	http://meted.ucar.edu/ist/poes3/index.htm
El Niño Theme Page	NOAA PMEL Staff	Pacific Marine Environment Lab	Rajul Pandya	The material here seems to span levels, I've used it primarily in undersgraduate classes.	An excellent comprehensive overview of El Nino.
	http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/toga-tao/el-nino/nino-home.html
Monthly Mean Composites	NOAA CDC Staff	Climate Diagnositcs Center	Rajul Pandya	All levels	You can get to this site from the EL Nino site above, but it is worth mentioning seperately. It allows you to construct monthly mean maps from NCEP Reanalysis.
	http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/Composites/
*Hurricanes*	NOAA Staff	NOAA.GOV	Rajul Pandya	Introductory course	Another good noaa site, this one on hurricanes. I tend not to use it directly in class, but to reccommend it to students in introductory courses who want/need more background.
	http://hurricanes.noaa.gov/

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Geosciences Web Sites

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Atmospheric Science

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Solid Earth

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Hydrology

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Phenomena (El Nino, Volcanoes, Hurricanes, Earthquakes...)

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