National Weather Camps Overview
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) and the School of Natural Resources (SNR) will host annual Summer Weather Camps each summer. Our first UNL/SNR Summer Weather Camp took place June 13-17, 2011 and was funded by a grant through NOAA and adminstered out of the High Plains Regional Climate Center.
The map above shows (in black) the existing Weather Camps and (in red), the weather camps under development. The UNL weather camp, after two years of planning and development, was invited to officially join the national weather camp program for the Summer 2012 Weather Camp program.
The Weather Camp is supported by funds from the NOAA Educational Partnership Program for Minority Serving Institutions (EPP/MSI) through the NOAA Center for Atmospheric Sciences (NCAS) at Howard University. Weather Camps are being sponsored in Washington, DC, Mayaguez, PR, Jackson, MS, El Paso, TX, Greensboro, NC, New York, NY, Lincoln, NE, Phoenix, AZ, Miami, FL, and Houston, TX.
The national weather camps are part of the The NOAA "CAREERS" camp program which is charged with "Channeling Atmospheric Research into Educational Experiences Reaching Students."
Students are engaged in hands-on activities, field experiments, seminars, tours of research facilities, and workshops that expand their knowledge of atmospheric sciences, weather and forecast models, and environmental instrumentation.
Over the course of the program, students also receive exposure to the college experience through their interactions on campus, interactions with Atmospheric Sciences STEM and graduate students, and use of campus computational and academic facilities.
As stated by Mike Mogil, a coordinator of the National weather camp program: '"What has proven amazing is that when kids come in contact with similarly focused kids at our growing array of summer weather camps, we start to hear comments like, "I never knew there were others like me out there." It is clear that this helps the young adult reaffirm his/her choice of a career path"
Past sponsors of the national weather camp include WeatherBug, The Weather Channel, Accuweather, Noblis, NOAA, EPA, Caelum, and Raytheon.
LINKS for further information:
Weather Camp Continues to Expand
Howard University NOAA Center for Atmospheric Science Weather Camp Overview
