Educational Programs

A University of Nevada graduate field course in Atmospheric Sciences is taught by DRI faculty, with two weeks of field research at SPL. This class is designed to give the students experience in all facets of a field research program, from the development of the research proposal and experiment, project planning, and final reporting. The students proceed through the steps of experimental design for the field site, acquisition and testing of instrumentation, development of data collection procedures, equipment deployment and instrument installation, in-field documentation, data analysis and interpretation, and summary of their results in a written paper and in an oral presentation. The paper required using article format requirements of a journal and the presentation format is patterned after that of a scientific meeting. DRI's Atmospheric Sciences graduate degree program has a tradition of providing courses of field project experience with instrumentation and advanced atmospheric measurement systems (Hallett et al., 1990; Hallett et al., 1993; Wetzel et al., 1995), and field courses at SPL are a part of this activity. Other universities are welcome to conduct field instruction at SPL or to participate in a DRI-led class.

The Storm Peak Lab has also been a significant component of a grant to DRI from the NSF Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Program, in which training resources and workshops have been developed which focus on atmospheric instrumentation. Other universities and colleges who have conducted field courses at SPL include City College of New York, Colorado State University, Colorado Mountain College and University of Wisconsin.

Access to the laboratory for the community college as well as classes from the local school district is provided by the Steamboat Ski and Resort Corporation. DRI scientists routinely invite classes of fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth graders and their teachers from the region's middle schools on field trips to SPL. Enroute from the school to SPL, the students make measurements of temperature, pressure (elevation), and aerosol condensation nucleus (CN) concentrations.

The measurements are made from the bus as they travel through town and also up the mountain on the ski lifts. Thus, the students observe first hand the spatial distribution of primarily fresh combustion aerosol concentrations within town and the decrease in concentration with altitude, including the effects of temperature inversions on aerosol dispersion and distribution. During their visits they are given short introductory talks on the types of measurements being made at SPL, descriptions of meteorological instrumentation, and the objectives of the ongoing research projects. The middle school classes can access meteorological data from the SPL weather station. Experiments include measurements of wind chill, solar radiation, UV exposure, and wind power.

The Desert Research Institute is an equal opportunity service provider and employer. The Desert Research Institute is a permittee of the Medicine-Bow Routt National Forests.

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