OLLI comes to MWO

2016-10-24 23:18:42.000 – Will Broussard, Education Coordinator

On Wednesday the Education Department of the Mount Washington Observatory completed a three week adult education course on the basics of meteorology and forecasting with local Mount Washington Valley residents. The course was titled; “Life, Work and Environment at the Mount Washington Observatory” and was presented to members of the Conway branch of OLLI at Granite State College. OLLI, an acronym for Osher Lifelong Learning Institute is a volunteer-run membership organization founded by the Bernard Osher Foundation in 2000 with “an open invitation for individuals 50+ years of age to enjoy learning for the love of it.” The Conway branch is one of 119 such programs located at college and universities nationwide.

The course covered a number of topics related to Mt. Washington and the Observatory, including a brief history of summit occupation presented by Director of Education Brian Fitzgerald, the basics of forecasting from Outreach Coordinator Will Broussard, along with a brief climatology of Mt. Washington presented by Observer and Education Specialist Tom Padham. Each hour-long session began with a lecture on one of the topics above and concluded with a live videoconference connection to the summit with Weather Observer and Education Specialist, Mike Carmon. Live connections allowed participants to observe current summit conditions and hear a breakdown of the expected forecast for the alpine zone.

Local residents were enthralled to learn about the unique and often severe meteorological conditions in their own backyard. Mount Washington Observatory is happy to offer free and low cost programming for local residents and we hope to continue this program into the future. For more information on our Educational programs please visit the Education section of our website.

Will Broussard, Education Coordinator