Introducing high-tech and low-tech geoscience-related technology to disadvantaged schools in the tropical pacific

Journal of Geoscience Education, Mar 2003 by Gibson, Barbara A, Postawko, Susan E, Ensworth, John D, Morrissey, Mark, Et al

ABSTRACT

The Schools of the Pacific Rainfall Climate Experiment (SPaRCE) is a cooperative educational and research project that involves elementary, middle, and high schools, trade schools, colleges, and meteorological services from various Pacific islands, atolls, and the U.S. The educational materials that the program provides to Pacific area schools involves mostly the use of non-technical, simple equipment and experiments. This is due to the cost of materials and postage, and the fact that most schools are isolated, lack funds, or do not have reliable electricity. The material sent to participants include plastic direct-read rain gauges, workbooks, and videos that discuss tropical Pacific related weather phenomenon. Recently, the SPaRCE program was able to deploy automated weather stations to a limited number of participants. In addition, the SPaRCE program had also supplied four Pacific-area schools with Micro-Tops devices, a hand-held radiometer which measures total column ozone. The SPaRCE program hopes to continue providing the participating educators with more opportunities to use technology in their geoscience curriculum.

Keywords: Meteorology, climate, Pacific, science education

INTRODUCTION

Changes in climate and the environment are concerns at both the regional and global scale. Many studies examining such changes are difficult to verify due to a lack of necessary data. For example, changes in rainfall trends and patterns, especially in regions such as the tropics which are significant to climate change prediction, are often difficult to detect due to insufficient validation data (Morrissey et al., 1995). International education, communication, and cooperation are necessary to understand and mitigate the possible effects of global climate change. Although the small island and atoll nations in the Pacific contribute very little to the increase in greenhouse gases, they are among the most vulnerable parts of the globe to resulting changes in climate (Postawko et al., 1994; Morrissey et al., 1995; Chew, 1999). A study conducted by the Australian International Development Assistance Bureau (AIDB) concluded that human resource development is vital to strengthen climate monitoring, regional networking, and support systems across the Pacific. It also concluded that education, information, and training projects to increase awareness of the potential impacts of climate change should be implemented (Brook et al., 1991).

Theories and knowledge of science are rapidly evolving; thus unfortunately causing classroom science textbooks to become quickly outdated. This problem is furthermore compounded in the Pacific because most island countries are using out of date U.S. and Australian textbooks which primarily discuss mid-latitude weather and do not fully discuss weather phenomena of the tropics. From our experience at several Pacific workshops, many tropical Pacific educators have little information available to them to discuss the most basic principles of rainfall patterns in the tropics, the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon, sea-level rise, and global warming. Moreover, while many students in more developed regions are utilizing the World Wide Web and the Internet to enhance their education, a majority of students in the Pacific are attending schools with only sporadic or no electricity. Even though there are number of international science education programs currently in existence, nearly all of them are "high tech" in that they typically require the use of a computer, Internet acccess, or a FAX machine for communication and cirricular purposes. Most Pacific teachers are not fortunate enough to have access to such equipment. The educational aspect of the SPaRCE program was devloped to address these difficulties facing Pacific educators.

The Schools of the Pacific Rainfall Climate Experiment (SPaRCE) was started in 1993 to help compensate for the lack of rainfall data collected form the Tropical Pacific Basin region (Postawko et al., 1994). Thus, the SPaRCE program is a dual research and educational program. The research aspect of the program was established to provide scientists worldwide with the necessary long-term rainfall data for verification of satellite algorithms and global circulation models, and for identification of trends and pattern shifts. The data collected by SPaRCE schools are incorporated into the Comprehensive Pacific Rainfall Database (CPRDB) (Morrissey et al., 1995). The CPRDB database also includes rainfall from the New Zealand Meteorological Service, the French Polynesian Meteorological Service, and the U.S. National Climatic Data Center. The CPRDB database is available to interested persons via the World Wide Web (http://www.evac.ou.edu/pacrain).

SPaRCE was initiated with funds from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Change Program, the National Science Foundation, the University of Oklahoma, and the Oklahoma NASA Space Grant Consortium. During the first year, the program was able to recruit 30 Pacific area schools with the assistance of the PEACESAT (Pan-Pacific Communications and Education by Satellite) network at the University of Hawaii. Local meteorological services in various Pacific island countries also helped in recruiting schools to the new program. Currently, the SPaRCE program has approximately 130 schools from 15 different countries (Figure 1).