August 31, 1993 Boulder, Colorado

Dear Colleagues in Science and Teachers,

In an effort to inspire student interest in science and technology, scientists from the Forecast Systems Laboratory, a laboratory within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), and classroom teachers from the Boulder Valley School District collaborated to produce a series of classroom science activities on meteorology and atmospheric science. We call this series Student Activities in Meteorology, or SAM.

Our goal is to provide activities that are interesting to students, and at the same time convenient and easy to use for teachers. The activity topics chosen are to incorporate trend setting scientific research and cutting edge technology. Several of the activities focus on the meteorological concerns of the Denver metropolitan area, because many of NOAA's research laboratories are located in Boulder, where much of the research and testing for the region is performed.

We believe that these activities are versatile and can be easily integrated into your current science, environmental studies, health, social studies, and mathematics curriculum. Although each SAM activity can be used alone, the series is designed to supplement your established curriculum. Further, these activities are designed to span a wide range of grade and ability levels. The reading level is aimed at the middle school group. However, the questions that follow each procedure vary in difficulty and can challenge even high school age students. A serious attempt was made to incorporate mathematics into the procedures and follow-up questions. We hope that you find these activities flexible enough to adapt to your teaching and classroom style.

Your opinion and evaluation of the science activities in this series are vital to us. We plan to update and improve SAM based on your comments and hope to add to the series in the future. An evaluation form is included in the "Information for Teachers" section of this series. Please complete the form after you have used one or more of the activities, and return it to us so that we can implement your suggestions for improvement.

We hope that these activities prove to be interesting and motivational, and provide a springboard to lively classroom discussions.

Barbara McGehan Boulder Laboratories Public Affairs Officer

Rhonda Lange Forecast Systems Laboratory Visitor/Information Services Coordinator

Beverly L. Meier and Elisa Passarelli Science Teachers Boulder Valley School District