It may have been in the middle of summer, but 17 middle and high school students from across the country had no problem spending part of their summer break in the classroom.
The students came to participate in UNL’s first-ever national weather camp.
Ken Dewey, professor of applied climate science, led development of the UNL weather camp over the past two years. After an evaluation by the American Meteorological Society, the UNL program was invited in January to join a growing network of national weather camps.
“This is quite an honor for UNL to be recognized as a leader in the emerging national initiative to develop weather camps across the nation,” Dewey said.
Dewey has also been invited to join the national weather camp administrative team. He will attend the group’s planning meeting this winter in Atlanta, Ga.
The 17 students who participated in UNL’s first national weather camp represented seven states including Nebraska, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Missouri and Texas.
“Competition was fierce and it was difficult to narrow it down to only these 17 students from the many outstanding applications,” Dewey said.
The weeklong camp was June 10-14. Activities included a weather and climate classroom curriculum, outdoor hands-on experiments with instruments, classroom guest speakers, research projects in a computer lab and field trips.
Weather camp participants learned several skills like how to work in groups to solve problems, how to take daily weather observations, how to use instruments, how to conduct experiments and how to make daily weather forecasts.
Learn more about UNL’s weather camp, at http://go.unl.edu/weathercamp.
