Excellence in Geophysical Education Award
Excerpted from the AGU Website:
"Excellence in Geophysical Education Award is awarded yearly
to recognize and honor an individual, team, or group of individuals
who have exhibited a sustained commitment to excellence in geophysical
education. Such a commitment may be evidenced by:
- a specific program or project that has had a
major ongoing influence on geophysical education
- outstanding teaching or training of individuals over a number
of years
- long-lasting professional service related to geophysical education
that has had a long-lasting positive impact"
Dr. Tim Spangler,
COMET Director and John A. Orcutt, AGU President |
Citation
I am most pleased and honored to present this citation to the COMET
Program for the 2006 AGU 2006 Excellence in Geophysical Education
Award for their outstanding efforts to provide and improve access
to quality science education materials worldwide.
Over the past 15 years, the COMET Program has served as the conduit
between internationally recognized experts in various geosciences
and those tasked with protection of lives and property around the
world. COMET was originally created in 1990 to help educate U. S.
operational meteorologists to apply the latest science of weather
forecasting, and to incorporate new sources of data, such as Doppler
radar and advanced meteorological satellites. COMET now also reaches
university faculty and students, emergency managers, broadcasters,
and the general public with its ever expanding list of educational
materials on a variety of topics in geophysical disciplines. Over
400 universities and colleges have accessed the COMET training website.
From its inception, COMET has engaged learners by using a unique,
holistic approach in developing training. This approach not only incorporates
sound science, but it also uses creative instructional techniques
and embraces the most current technology in both the development and
delivery of training. The exceptional quality of COMET materials is
the result of hard work by the accomplished instructional designers,
scientists, programmers, graphic artists, and support staff who make
up the COMET team.
The successful training development model that has evolved at COMET
involves working with scientific experts to capture their knowledge
in rich, engaging, multimedia learning modules that apply key scientific
concepts to case study examples. Through COMET online learning materials,
anyone anywhere in the world can learn science directly from the experts,
free of charge. COMET has become internationally recognized as a leader
in computer-based training and shares their best practices and lessons
learned with other training agencies worldwide to assist them with
their own development activities.
Over the past 15 years, technology has evolved, and COMET training
has taken advantage of these improvements. In the early 1990s, their
computer-based training modules were delivered via laserdisc, which
later evolved to CD and now are delivered exclusively via the MetEd
Website (http://meted.ucar.edu). In addition, to support case study
development for both their computer-based training and their classroom
courses, COMET developed software to help emulate the operational
forecasting environment and then developed a data archive and targeted
case studies to support it.
Community outreach is also a focus of COMET. To support professional
development and education in government, the private sector, and at
universities, COMET provides the MetEd Registration and Assessment
System that administers quizzes, tracks scores, and issues completion
certificates for students using the COMET modules. A Multimedia Database
provides access to training media developed by COMET that can be used
freely for educational purposes. The program’s Case Study Library
provides comprehensive meteorological datasets for classroom use or
research activities. For international users, COMET has a growing
body of materials that have been translated into Spanish, French,
Korean, and Russian.
COMET has also made great strides to bridge the gap between the academic
and operational meteorology communities by providing funds for applied
research conducted jointly by operational forecast offices and universities.
These partnerships have advanced scientific knowledge and improved
forecasts. At the same time, they have resulted in a better understanding
between the two groups and have helped form long-time collaborations.
COMET is a very important part of the atmospheric science enterprise,
and I’m very happy to see the program recognized with this award.
Jack D. Fellows, UCAR Vice President, Boulder, Colorado
Response
Thank you very much, Jack, for this generous citation.
As the COMET Program Director and on behalf of the COMET staff, our
parent organization (the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research),
our program sponsors, our community of users, and the many experts
who so generously work with us, I want to thank the AGU for this great
honor.
In the late 1980s, NOAA through its National Weather Service approached
UCAR with the idea of setting up a university/NWS scientific training
program. The purpose was to re-engage the university community in
advancing the weather services of the nation, especially as the weather
services were being modernized. In 1990, COMET began actively producing
materials used to train thousands of forecasters without requiring
them to leave their duty stations for days at a time. Although distance
education today is commonplace, at the time we began, this was blazing
new territory. We promoted the idea of combining distance training
with onsite train-the-trainer courses. We were also among the first
to develop computer-based instruction that applied sound instructional
design principles that include the use of audio, video, animations,
and interactive exercises that simulate real-world forecasting tasks.
And while our focus is mainly on meteorology education, we have expanded
into other geosciences such as oceanography and space physics. Over
the last 15 years, our methods have evolved to keep pace with ever-changing
technology, which is a continuous challenge. In that time, we have
created over 550 hours of interactive multimedia instruction, offered
over 300 weeks of courses, and have funded over 250 collaborative
research projects involving more than 70 different universities and
100 weather forecast offices.
Of course, these accomplishments are possible only with the support
of our sponsors. In addition to the National Weather Service, we have
had long-term support from NOAA-NESDIS, the Air Force Weather Agency
and the Navy Meteorology and Oceanography Command. We have also received
support from six other federal agencies:
• FAA – Federal Aviation Administration
• NASA – National Aeronautical and Space Administration
• FEMA – Federal Emergency Management Agency
• FHWA – Federal Highway Administration
• NSF – National Science Foundation
• US Army
In addition, we have also received funding from six international
organizations:
• The World Meteorology Organization
• The Australian Bureau of Meteorology
• The Meteorological Service of Canada
• The German Foreign Aid Program
• The Taiwan Weather Bureau
• EUMETSAT
The vision, support, and commitment of these agencies and the NOAA
National Weather Service are also rightly commended by this award.
I would also like to thank UCAR and the National Center for Atmospheric
Research, which have hosted COMET since its first day and provided
facilities and scientists for the program. I would also like to recognize
the staff of COMET for their outstanding talents and dedication to
the advancement of weather forecasting. I am continually in awe of
what they do and how well they do it, and without the staff, the program
is nothing. Finally, my acknowledgements would be incomplete if I
did not also recognize the thousands of hours spent by university
and government scientists in providing scientific expertise, teaching
our classes, recording audio, reviewing graphics and scripts, participating
in collaborative research projects, and providing program oversight.
Their generosity and dedication truly exemplifies what excellence
in geosciences education can accomplish.
Over the last 15 years we have all seen huge changes in technology,
and the ability to train professionals and educate students anywhere
in the world has expanded dramatically. However, technology is just
a means to an end. It does not by itself address how to teach effectively.
Poor classroom instruction does not improve by making it available
on the Web. Issues in the news such as hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes,
and global climate change point to the need for improving geosciences
education at all levels, but especially for decision makers and the
public. This requires that all of us who teach (and in one way or
another, that includes everyone) continually think carefully about
what people really need to know and how they can best learn whatever
it is we want to teach them. And we must all work to inform policy
makers that quality geosciences education must be an important component
of all scientific activities.
Again, on behalf of our program I’d like to thank the AGU for
this great honor.
Tim Spangler, Director of the COMET Program, Boulder, Colorado
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