2023-24 Education Programs Recap: Inspiring Future Meteorologists

By MWOBS Education Staff

The academic year of 2023-2024 has ended, and with it, MWOBS’ education team has experienced our biggest year of growth— both programming and staffing-wise— yet. Seasonal AmeriCorps Educator Emily Veh and School Programs Coordinator Jackie Bellefontaine (also a former summit intern turned weather observer) started off the year strong with a backpack giveaway to over 800 middle school students across the White Mountains and Western Maine. These Cotopaxi backpacks also included weather kits, cloud charts, and additional educational materials for each student: See Story of Impact here.

Moving into fall, Educators Jackie and Emily piloted their Junior Weather Observers after–school program in partnership with Conway School District’s Project SUCCEED, where students experienced multiple weeks of training, weather education, and interactive activities to become a certified Junior Weather Observer. When asked what the most exciting part of this pilot program was, Educator Jackie expressed, “It was the first time we were interacting with the same group of students regularly, which meant we got to build up our programming weekly into their cumulative Junior Weather Observer certification; it was really cool to see it through.” The EduTeam completed this fall after school programming with three local elementary schools: Jackson Grammar School, John Fuller Elementary School, and Pine Tree Elementary School.

Entering the spring semester, fall summit intern Amy Cotter transitioned into a seasonal position as School Programs Educator in January of 2024. Thrilled to continue her work with the Observatory, Amy joined as the EduTeam ramped up our in-school programming. Diving right in, she began developing materials and programs, leading programs both in and after school, and helping to pilot winter field trips up both the Auto Road and the Cog Railway to Winter Cut-Off and Waumbek Station, respectively.

While we continued our after-school Junior Weather Observer sessions with 4 more schools (Pine Tree Elementary School, Newark Street School, Lyndon Town School, and Conway Elementary School), we also kicked off a busy season of school-day programming. From September to June, we completed 139 programs. (To learn about school memberships, check out our School Visits page or reach out to Jackie Bellefontaine.)

Our weather and climate programming spans a wide range of subjects and aligns with NGSS Weather and Climate standards in support of schools’ STEM curriculum while incorporating hands-on, interactive activities. Our programs cover anything from Extreme Mount Washington, where students conduct a hands-on weather observation to learn about why Mount Washington’s weather conditions are so drastically different than their local weather, to Climate Change, where middle and high schoolers explore local climate data to improve their data literacy and graphing skills and to strengthen their sense of place.

Our team is constantly brainstorming and developing new programs in collaboration with teachers to align with their STEM curriculum, and Coordinator Jackie highlights our Earth’s Spheres program as her favorite this academic year. Amy’s favorite, on the other hand, was our Climate Change program. In this program, students compare local weather and climate data by graphing temperature using an open-source platform CODAP, which in turn helps them develop scientific literacy skills and build their foundational knowledge surrounding standard scientific procedures. A part of this program that Amy loves is that it “encourages students to connect climate change to their personal lives by looking at how temperature has changed throughout their lifetimes and also fosters a sense of place, which is so important in scientific work of any type.”

While each program presents its own learning opportunities and challenges, this year has been fantastic for the EduTeam because of the longer-term relationships we’re building with schools. “Educators are travelling to the same schools day after day, week after week, and it is so awesome to really see programming through and make all of the material cumulative, which, in a lot of cases, is building up to a field trip up Mount Washington” says Amy.

While we certainly love one-off programming either in-school or on the mountain, the EduTeam has found it so rewarding to help students develop a foundational understanding of weather, climate, and Mount Washington all throughout the semester before going in-person and actually seeing the exciting mountain and weather station they’ve learned so much about. This really allows them to wrap up their weather learning for the year and apply their learning in an exciting and memorable way.

Just in time for field trips, the EduTeam saw the addition of seasonal AmeriCorps School Programs Educator Amelia Gross in May. She has excelled in her position and has worked with approximately 550 students just from May to June! When asked about her favorite field trip programs, she explains she really enjoyed our temperature and pressure program, where students measure and record temperature and pressure changes as we ascend the mountain. “They’re then able to reflect and apply what they’ve already learned throughout our programming,” Amelia explains. Below, MESA Public Schools enjoys an experiential visit to the summit on a field trip.

As we wrapped up the school year, the team additionally saw the permanent addition of Amy as Lead Educator. Jackie, Amy, and Amelia are looking forward to a wonderful summer filled with summer camps (including our very own Storm Scouts camp), a few field trips, and lots of program development in preparation for another great school year! To learn more about MWOBS’ Education offerings, visit https://mountwashington.org/education/.