Ohio’s environmental educators - including naturalists, soil and water professionals, classroom teachers, park rangers, extension educators, and volunteers – deliver programs that reach thousands of Ohioans annually. The Improving Weather and Climate Understanding in Ohio program will help to increase knowledge, skills, and capacity of environmental educators and bolster access to programs and resources on Ohio relevant weather and climate topics for use in both public and professional environmental education.
The workshop series offered four successful in-person sessions around the state thanks to an Ohio State Energy Partners grant last Fall. Now, we are back on the road to for our last session to complete the work. Destination: Northwest Ohio. We will provide entry-level background on Ohio’s weather and climate, scalable indoor and field activities, time for questions, and brainstorming opportunities to integrate content into current programming. The content, learning experiences, and training opportunities to explore how climate and weather topics could be integrated into public programs reaching diverse audiences across Ohio, and are based on text created for the Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalist program by a collaboration of Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center and OSU Extension.
Weather captivates with its awe and power and affords ways to connect Ohioans to their natural environment. The workshop and materials are specifically designed to address barriers that educators and volunteers have reported to integrating weather, climate, and climate change into their work, including: 1) a lack of knowledge and experience; (2) concerns over potential controversy; and (3) lack of awareness of applicable curricula and field activities, especially for Ohio. Furthermore, research shows that an overwhelming percentage of Ohioans want to learn about climate change but are seldom given chances to even discuss it.
