Summary, Lessons Learned, Conclusions and Future Goals

In total, MARVELOUS was a success for the student body of the AHS and STEM Ed departments and for the general public. The interdisciplinary nature of involving students from both the AHS department as well as the STEM Ed department in the project lent itself very nicely for multiple learning opportunities for K-12 students and the undergraduate students in a unique educational setting and atmosphere. This is an aspect of MARVELOUS which was anticipated to be an eye-opening experience for many involved, and it was met with very positive results, as demonstrated in the student, faculty and public feedback given to the PIs.

In future educational projects, it is anticipated that there will be even more student, faculty and public interest in both the meteorological and educational outreach opportunities that MARVELOUS offered. For example, the National Weather Service office in Duluth, MN, has expressed interest in working with the students in the AHS department on future deployments, as having a mobile Doppler radar would provide coverage in areas not well sampled by the stationary WSR-88D; this in and of itself would be a wonderful collaboration between budding and seasoned meteorologists.

As the need for meaningful and long-lasting science- and inquiry-based education and experiences for K-12 and college-aged students inevitably increases, we look forward to developing and organizing more projects like MARVELOUS at SCSU in the future. 

Acknowledgements:

The PIs wish to thank all of the SCSU students who worked tirelessly to make this project truly marvelous. Thanks are also extended to all of the faculty and support staff who made it a rousing success. Additionally, we wish to thank Brian Pereira, Karen Kosiba, and Traeger Meyer of CSWR for their willingness to be “on call” in the event of technical difficulties during MARVELOUS. Finally, we also wish to thank Joshua Wurman for his willingness to work with our fall schedule to maximize the amount of time students had to work in, around, and with the instruments.