Snow sleuths: Researchers around the world join forces to investigate missing snow, improve water resources modeling
4 January 2023 | University of Washington
A single snowflake hadn’t yet fallen when a team of civil and environmental engineering snow researchers descended on a small town in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains this past fall. But that was intentional — they were preparing for the coming winter’s mission to answer a longstanding research question: What happens to snow after it falls?
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NCAR Joins International Field Campaign to Study Extreme Rainfall in Pacific
9 June 2022 | UCAR Communications
Based out of western Taiwan and a southern island of Japan, the Prediction of Rainfall Extremes Campaign in the Pacific (PRECIP) research team, including experts from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), will be carefully collecting data and observations of the extreme storms and monsoons that are common in this region.
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Grubišić APAR Interview BBC Science in Action Radio
21 January 2021 | BBC Science In Action
On January 21, 2021, Dr. Vanda Grubišić, Director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) Earth Observing Laboratory (EOL), was interviewed by Roland Pease, host of the BBC “Science in Action” program, which airs on BBC World Service Radio. In the interview, Grubišić explained EOL’s revolutionary new technology - the Airborne Phased Array Radar (APAR) - and the benefits this new radar will bring to the scientific and meteorological community in its quest to understand and predict hurricanes and other extreme weather phenomena. You may listen to the NCAR portion of the interview, and for more information about the APAR development, reach out to Kyu Kim, APAR Project Director.
NASA, NOAA, Department of Defense: What Hurricane Laura looks like from the air and beyond
26 August 2020 | daily advertiser
GPS dropsondes have been dropped during hurricane flights to help predict hurricane tracks and intensity, according to the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) Earth Observing Laboratory (EOL).
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NCAR hurricane probes
25 August 2020 | 9News
Coronavirus halts climate research and raises fears of long-term hit to science budgets
29 April 2020 | CNBC
From delaying Arctic expeditions to canceling climate summits, the coronavirus pandemic is hindering global progress on fighting climate change and raising fears over a long-term hit to scientific research budgets.
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NOAA, NHC visit 53rd WRS Hurricane Hunters
19 November 2019 | U.S. Air Force
From the outside looking in, hurricane forecasts seem fairly simplistic. On any given local weather station, they show either a spaghetti model or a more conical-shaped model predicting a storm’s path and intensity. There might be a high or low-pressure system animated into the graphic as well indicating why meteorologists suspect the projected path.
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Tsai becomes 2nd foreign government head to visit NCAR after Thatcher
21 July 2019 | Focus Taiwan News Channel
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Saturday became the second head of a foreign government to visit the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Colorado, after former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1990. During a trip to one of the world's premier scientific institutions as part of her visit to Denver, Tsai was welcomed by NCAR Director Everette Joseph, a group of Taiwanese scientists currently working at the facility, as well as Taiwanese students in the region.
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Scientists to Chase South American Total Eclipse with Research Aircraft
26 June 2019 | UCAR & NCAR News
A scientific instrument specifically designed to study the Great American Eclipse of 2017 will soon be making its second journey through the shadow of the moon. On July 2, scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) will be sending a high-altitude research jet through the path of totality of a solar eclipse, taking place in the Southern Hemisphere, to capture data that could unveil mysteries about the Sun’s magnetic field.
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Through The Mountains And Smoke
21 June 2019 | Science Friday
When wildfires rage in the West, Colorado State University atmospheric scientist Emily Fischer hops into a plane, and flies straight into the smoke. The plane is a flying chemistry lab, studded with instruments, and Fischer’s goal is to uncover the chemical reactions happening in smoke plumes, to determine how wildfire smoke may affect ecosystems and human health.
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New lidar instruments peer skyward for clues on weather and climate
21 May 2019 | Phys.org
Researchers have developed a set of diode-based lidar instruments that could help fill important gaps in meteorological observations and fuel a leap in understanding, modeling and predicting weather and climate. The instruments are particularly well suited for insights on atmospheric dynamics at the mesoscale, a size range equivalent to the area of a small city up to that of a U.S. state.
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How do tornadoes form? This drone-based project seeks to unravel the secrets of spinning storms
14 May 2019 | The Washington Post
A multiyear project in the Great Plains rolled out Monday with hopes of better understanding supercell thunderstorms and the tornadoes they spawn. Led by officials at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, the TORUS project — Targeted Observation by Radars and UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems) of Supercells — is deployed until June 16, with a second deployment planned in 2020. Dozens of researchers from multiple academic institutions and the federal government are participating.
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An Educational Deployment of the NCAR Mobile Integrated Sounding System
7 May 2019 | Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
The best way to train the next wave of observational talent is through direct experience. In 2012 and again in 2014, students at St. Cloud State University (SCSU) welcomed deployments of professional atmospheric research equipment, allowing them to support and execute field projects. The Boundary Structure Experiments with Central Minnesota Profiling (BaSE CaMP) projects brought the Mobile Integrated Sounding System (MISS) from the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s (NCAR) Earth Observing Laboratory (EOL) to SCSU for a National Science Foundation–funded educational deployment.
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Field campaign flies through icy weather; scientists study dangerous flight conditions
22 February 2019 | AtmosNews
Winter in the United States can produce some of the most dangerous weather for the aviation industry, including freezing rain, freezing drizzle, and sleet. Those are the ideal conditions for a field campaign focused on collecting in-flight data in some of the most treacherous North American icing conditions.
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Field Campaign to Study Extreme Storms in Argentina
24 October 2018 | AtmosNews
It's spring in the Pampas — the time of year when vast, intense thunderstorms roil across the region, which extends from the foothills of the Andes Mountains in Argentina to the coasts of Brazil and Uruguay. Next month, more than 150 scientists, including staff from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), will head to Argentina as part of a field campaign to discover why these thunderstorms may be the most intense on Earth.
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Aircraft Campaign to Clarify Chemistry of Wildfire Smoke
19 July 2018 | Colorado State University
This summer, a four-engine cargo airplane laden with both scientists and sophisticated equipment will fly straight into hazy smoke from Western wildfires. The flights will comprise the largest, most comprehensive attempt to date to measure and analyze the wildfire smoke that blankets vast swaths of the United States every year.
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NCAR Earth Observing Laboratory Director Elected to Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
15 June 2018 | NCAR & UCAR News
The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts has elected Vanda Grubišić, associate director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) as a corresponding member, lauding her for her role as a distinguished scientist living abroad who continues to collaborate with Croatian researchers.
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The Climate Secrets of Southern Clouds
09 January 2018 | AtmosNews
This month, an international team of scientists will head to the remote Southern Ocean for six weeks to tackle one of the region's many persistent mysteries: its clouds. What they discover will be used to improve climate models, which routinely underestimate the amount of solar radiation reflected back into space by clouds in the region.
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Scientists to Take Flight for Longer Views of the Eclipse
15 August 2017 | The New York Times
The Gulfstream V parked in the airport hangar here has tracked thunderstorms, blizzards, and hurricanes around the world. But on Aug. 21 the jet will soar about 45,000 feet into the sky in pursuit of a natural phenomenon unlike any it’s faced before: a total solar eclipse.
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Atmospheric scientists conduct field experiment to study wind flow over complex mountain terrain
01 June 2017 | National Science Foundation
Over the past month, researchers have descended on Portugal's Vale Do Cobrão near the Spanish border to study the valley's wind flow patterns.
The international project, known as Perdigão after the closest town, is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and involves more than 50 atmospheric scientists. They're working to better understand how wind moves over variable terrain.
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Monitoring Wind in Portugal’s Mountains Down to Microscales
31 May 2017 | Eos.org
Researchers are now gathered for the Perdigão field campaign, an effort to study wind flow physics at scales down to tens of meters. The effort should help engineers harness wind energy in Europe.
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Capturing a Detailed Portrait of Wind: Project in Portugal will observe wind at unprecedented resolution
28 April 2017 | AtmosNews
For two autumns in the early 1980s, researchers covered an isolated, gently sloping hill in Scotland with dozens of scientific instruments to measure the behavior of wind as it blew up and over from the nearby coast.
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From GOES-16 to the World: UCAR and NCAR to disseminate data from revolutionary new satellite
06 March 2017 | AtmosNews
As atmospheric scientists around the world look forward to seeing extraordinarily detailed images from the new GOES-16 satellite, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) are preparing for central roles in disseminating the satellite's data.
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World’s largest wind-mapping project spins up in Portugal
14 February 2017 | Nature
Machines have invaded a windswept rural valley in eastern Portugal. Squat white containers stare at the hillsides, sweeping lasers across the eucalyptus-studded slopes, and towers bristling with scientific instruments soar 100 metres into the air.
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NSF/NCAR Gulfstream V high-altitude science research aircraft returns from loan to NOAA
14 September 2016 | National Science Foundation
NSF's Gulfstream V aircraft has returned from a short-term loan to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The high-altitude, atmospheric science research plane provided observations of dangerous hurricanes while a NOAA plane underwent maintenance.
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Boulder scientists take to air to boost hurricane forecasting
04 September 2016 | Daily Camera
As the hurricane season churns toward its most potent period with storms affecting both Hawaii and Florida, superior aerial firepower is being deployed to provide advanced forecasting of the dangerous systems as they develop.
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Colorado research plane collecting hurricane data
01 September 2016 | 9News
It normally hangs its hat in an airplane hangar in Broomfield, but right now, that Gulfstream V is far from home. “This is a really important time to understand these observations, as these storms approach land in the United States,” said NCAR Project Manager Louis Lussier.
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Federal agencies join forces to forecast hurricanes
30 August 2016 | National Science Foundation
Hurricane forecasters will be ready for the upcoming peak of hurricane season, thanks to a partnership between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to share a high-altitude atmospheric science research plane.
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A CO2 Milestone in Earth's History
12 May 2016 | AtmosNews
Earth’s atmosphere is crossing a major threshold, as high levels of carbon dioxide (CO2)—the leading driver of recent climate change—are beginning to extend even to the globe's most remote region. Scientists flying near Antarctica this winter captured the moment with airborne CO2 sensors during a field project to better understand the Southern Ocean's role in global climate.
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The Convective Transport of Active Species in the Tropics (CONTRAST) Experiment
15 March 2016 | BAMS
The Convective Transport of Active Species in the Tropics (CONTRAST) experiment was conducted from Guam (13.5° N, 144.8° E) during January-February 2014. Using the NSF/NCAR Gulfstream V research aircraft, the experiment investigated the photochemical environment over the tropical western Pacific (TWP) warm pool, a region of massive deep convection and the major pathway for air to enter the stratosphere during Northern Hemisphere (NH) winter.
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Flying Lab to Investigate Southern Ocean's Appetite for Carbon
05 January 2016 | AtmosNews
A team of scientists is launching a series of research flights this month over the remote Southern Ocean in an effort to better understand just how much carbon dioxide the icy waters are able to lock away.
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Scientists Tackle Mystery of Thunderstorms That Strike At Night
20 May 2015 | AtmosNews
Thunderstorms that form at night, without a prod from the Sun's heat, are a mysterious phenomenon. This summer scientists will be staying up late in search of some answers. From June 1 through July 15, researchers from across North America will fan out each evening across the Great Plains, where storms are more common at night than during the day.
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Advanced radar makes maiden voyage from RDU
02 February 2015 | WRAL.com
While many spent Groundhog Day looking beneath the ground for the forecast, scientists were soaring high above in search of better forecasts. A research team from the University of Illinois and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) took a specially-equipped Gulfstream V plane from RDU and flew over the winter storm pounding New England.
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Cold facts of air pollution
02 February 20015 | AtmosNews
The difference between a breath of cold air and a breath of warm air isn’t just the temperature. It’s also the pollutants they might contain. Until now, wintertime air pollution hasn’t been studied in much detail. Scientists have focused more on warm air, partly because summertime's stagnant atmospheric conditions and intense sunshine tend to worsen ozone pollution. But that's about to change as researchers turn their attention to winter air quality in the eastern United States.
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On the right track for tropical clouds
27 January 2015 | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and collaborators are hot on the trail of a large and lumbering atmospheric wave. Originating in the tropics, the intra-seasonal force wields influence on weather patterns around the world.
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A meeting for storm-driven science
22 October 2014 | AtmosNews
Among the world’s varied climates, two populous midlatitude areas get an especially big helping of large-scale extreme rainfall: eastern Asia and central-to-eastern North America. Experts from both continents met at NCAR on September 15–18 to discuss promising avenues of research [...]
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Airborne phased array radar could spur a "quantum leap" in hurricane forecasts
19 August 2014 | The Washington Post
Forecasts for the tracks of hurricanes have made huge strides over the past 15 years, improving by over 50 percent. But forecasts for the intensity of hurricanes have lagged, with only modest gains in accuracy seen very recently.
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Canterbury students to support advanced research aircraft operating
01 June 2014 | Voxy.co.nz
Six University of Canterbury students have been given a once in a lifetime opportunity to be involved in major international research led by some of the world’s leading atmospheric scientists. The research involves one of the world’s most advanced atmospheric research aircraft which arrives at Christchurch International Airport this month.
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Scientists focus on Southern Alps weather
27 May 2014 | Greymouth Star
Monitoring for the international weather research project based at Hokitika Airport will ramp up this week once specialized equipment is set up. Hokitika is hosting a segment of a wider New Zealand project dubbed ‘DEEPWAVE’ led by the United States National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) to study the phenomenon of westerly wind flows into the upper atmosphere.
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Boulder researchers leading landmark Front Range air quality study
25 May 2014 | Daily Camera
It sounds like a delectable dessert.
In fact, it's an ambitious effort to gather thorough data on all the pollutants that appear in the atmosphere over the Front Range during the summer months and prevent the metro area from meeting federal air quality standards.
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Flying Under the Radar Suits Safety Services Group
31 April 2014 | NCAR Highlight
Most groups take pride in gaining recognition for their efforts. For the Health, Environment and Safety Services (HESS) at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), however, this is not the case. “Success is best measured by not being noticed by the institution, it means we’re doing our jobs,” says Milenda Powers the team’s manager.
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Storm chaser visits Strawberry Park Elementary School to get students excited about science
22 January 2014 | Steamboat Today
Tim Lim had just barely opened the back of his diesel pickup Wednesday morning when he was mobbed by a group of excited elementary school students [...]
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3 of the World’s Best Scientific Aircraft Team Up for Climate Science Research
09 January 2014 | KQED
Of course spacecraft and astronauts and robot rovers are sexy. So are scientific submarines and their dives to the deep seafloor. But today I want to speak up for research aircraft and the plucky geniuses who maintain and fly them. [...]
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Scientists to Examine Pacific's "Global Chimney"
07 January 2014 | AtmosNews
Even though few people live in the western tropical Pacific Ocean, these remote waters affect billions of people by shaping climate and air chemistry worldwide. Next week, leading scientists will head to the region to better understand its influence on the atmosphere [...]
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UVISIT Supports University of Hawaii's HERO Program
23 December 2013 | National Center for Atmospheric Research
UCAR’s University Visits in Scientific Interaction and Teaching program launched in 2013, and the first participants are returning from their time with university partners. We checked in with Wen-Chau Lee, a senior scientist in the Earth Observing Laboratory [...]
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Extending the Life of Field Projects
05 November 2013 | AtmosNews
After the excitement and exhaustion of a months-long field project, the last thing any scientist or funder wants is for the resulting data to be lost or locked away forever. NCAR has a handy antidote for that concern.
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What the Heck is a Dropsonde?
26 August 2013 | NASA
We’re planning to fly over the vast Atlantic with our Global Hawk - once again looking at the dust and dry air from the Sahara. Takeoff on Saturday morning and landing on Sunday morning. We’ll fly from Wallops to a point near the Cape Verde Islands (just off of Africa) and back in about 25 hours. It took Columbus 5 weeks to sail [...]
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It's a bird, a plane, a UFO? It's a....red sprite
26 August 2013 | National Science Foundation
Is it a bird, is it a plane, is it a UFO? Strange lights in the sky are being closely watched by atmospheric scientists. Dubbed red sprites by researchers, these dancing fairies-of-the-clouds are sometimes glimpsed as blood-red bursts of light in the shape of jellyfish. At other times, they appear as trumpet-shaped blue emissions, [...]
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Flying Lab Studies Global Climate Change
14 August 2013 | Voice of America
Researchers studying global climate change have taken to the skies in a flying laboratory that is at the forefront of scientific discovery. The lab is a Gulfstream V corporate jet that has been modified. In place of the luxury seats for business executives are banks of computers and dozens of weather instruments.
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Swinging CO2 Levels Show the Earth is Breathing More Deeply
08 August 2013 | National Public Radio
Plant life on our planet soaks up a fair amount of the carbon dioxide that pours out of our tailpipes and smokestacks. Plants take it up during the summer and return some of it to the air in the winter. And a new study shows that those "breaths" have gotten deeper over the past 50 years. [...]
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Smyrna airport serving as base for major air quality study in Southeast
24 June 2013 | The Tennessean
Middle Tennessee is being pushed to the forefront of atmospheric science this summer, as researchers from across the country gather at Smyrna’s airport to collect information in planes that double as “flying chemical laboratories.” Dozens of organizations, including the National Science Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration [...]
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NCAR joins massive field campaign to examine summertime air in Southeast
19 June 2013 | AtmosNews
Taking part in the largest U.S. air quality field project in decades, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is working with partners to study pollution in the Southeast. The study looks at the impact of chemical reactions occurring between human-related pollution and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from [...]
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Storm chasing from the sky
10 June 2013 | USA Today
Not all storm chasing is done on the ground. Over the past few weeks, scientists in the central USA have been chasing severe storms from seven miles above the Earth, in a high-flying research jet that scans the skies for nascent severe storms. The project, known as MPEX for "Mesoscale Predictability EXperiment," began in mid-May and [...]
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Strengthening Community for Summer Interns
7 June 2013 | NCAR/UCAR ForStaff
The last few years have seen a blossoming of NCAR and UCAR internship programs scattered across various organizational niches, but little in the way of centralized activity. That’s changing in 2013, as a new seminar series is pulling together more than 50 undergraduate and graduate interns. "The seminars are [...]
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Getting the Most From Research Radar
28 February 2013 | AtmosNews
They’ve been carried by truck into supercell thunderstorms and flown on aircraft into hurricanes. They’ve sliced and diced the atmosphere in ways that would have astounded meteorologists a generation ago. So where are research radars headed next, and where will they take science and society? A workshop held at [...]
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NCAR Program Helps Next-generation Scientists Explore Career Options
NCAR/UCAR
Despite the large and growing number of Latinos in the United States, this population remains severely underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math-related (STEM) professions – making up less than 5% of the nation’s STEM workforce. Working with 15 high school students in Boulder, and partnering with CLACE [...]
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