Climate Literacy Ambassadors
A NASA Global Climate Change Education Project

PI: Steve Ackerman    Co-I: Margaret Mooney

The Climate Literacy Ambassadors program is a collaborative effort to advance climate literacy led by the Cooperative Institute of Meteorological Satellite Studies (CIMSS) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. With support from NASA, CIMSS is coordinating a program to enable G6-12 teachers to be Ambassadors of Climate Literacy in their local schools and communities. The program starts with a workshop followed by a 6-week distance learning course culminating in a technology-supported virtual community of climate change educators.

2012 opportunities to join the Climate Literacy Ambassadors community include the Wisconsin Society of Science Teachers annual conference in March and the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) meeting in July.

The workshops recruit teachers to the project, provide an overview on climate change and demonstrate cutting-edge resources from NASA, NOAA and the UW-Madison. The first workshop was held in May 2010 at CIMSS in Madison. The second Climate Literacy Ambassadors workshop was held at the Federation of Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) July 2010 meeting in Knoxville Tennessee.

May 2010 Workshop		July 2010 Workshop
The third & fourth workshops were held at CIMSS in Madison Wisconsin in January 2011.
11 January 2011 Workshop		15 January 2011 Workshop
The 5th workshop at ESIP in New Mexico. July 2011 Workshop		The 6th workshop was at back at CIMSS. January 2012 Workshop

The distance learning curriculum utilizes e-learning technology to clarify graphs and concepts from the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Summary for Policy Makers with content intricately linked to the Essential Principles of Climate Literacy.

Participating teachers receive stipends as they progress through the program and become climate education resource agents. Additional stipends are available for teachers who undertake capstone projects that engage students in research projects utilizing NASA data to investigate regional climate system topics.

The last opportunity to join the Climate Literacy Ambassadors will be at the 2012 ESIP teacher workshop in Madison Wisconsin on July 17th and 18th. Middle and High school science teachers are eligible for time and travel stipends provided by NOAA. You can download this flyer for more information, or register for the ESIP conference on the ESIP web page after the spring equinox.

The last opportunity to receive a tuition offset stipend from NASA for taking the on-line course for credit will be the 2012 UW-Madison fall semester.

For more information please email Margaret Mooney at margaret.mooney@ssec.wisc.edu