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DirectMet® Education


Live Weather Data + Innovative Curriculum = Interactive Education!


Teaching Science and Math has changed. The new focus on Earth/Space Systems Science emphasizes the dynamic interrelationships between the atmosphere, oceans, and land. New technology in the classroom makes use of live data and hands-on activities, which greatly enhances learning. State and national standards are under revision to reflect these dramatic changes.

At DirectMet we know these new standards can be challenging to teachers as well as to students. We also know you need better tools to teach and motivate today's computer-literate kids. We've assembled a team of certified teachers with years of classroom experience, veteran meteorologists, and software engineers to produce the DirectMet Satellite Imagery Analysis Program. DirectMet provides an exceptional educational value at a reasonable cost by allowing students to investigate the Earth's atmosphere and oceans; study weather and climate; assess current weather conditions, including storm tracks, cloud heights, and temperatures; and observe storms and weather patterns with live, interactive data. Equally important is DirectMet's ease of use. The system is designed to be completely "user-friendly" for both teachers and students, and is appropriate for upper elementary levels through college. To further enhance its value and ease of use, DirectMet includes both an Educator's Guide and a Satellite Imagery Interpretation Guide in hard copy and CD-ROM formats.

 

DirectMet® supports a wide range of curriculum topics:


  • Earth and Space Systems Science: Mid-latitude cyclones/fronts; severe weather; hurricane formation, tracking, and classification; snow cover analysis; sea surface temperatures; ocean currents; up welling; El Nino and La Nina detection; and student investigation (initiated and directed).
  • Geography: Locating weather systems and land features (rivers, lakes, coastlines); determining distance and direction from school to other locations; using latitude and longitude; and understanding map projections.
  • Mathematics: Histograms; image enhancement; and pixel value-to-temperature algorithms.


Teachable Moments



Educators who have used DirectMet report that the program is highly successful. "Teachable moments" come much more frequently, students are involved more quickly, and concepts are grasped more readily. Students learn more.

The reasons cited by teachers for the success of DirectMet include:

  • Students are genuinely interested in weather, especially the weather where they are right now. The entire outdoors becomes their "weather lab."
  • They get to use "real world," interactive technology in their classroom. Because the information is interactive, students can use the program to gain additional information about areas of interest by zooming, color-enhancing, color-shading, and geo-locating.
  • Weather analysis and forecasting provides challenging problems and builds critical thinking skills.
  • Students are fascinated with the power of nature. Major weather events provide demonstrations in a time scale that gets and keeps student attention.

 

 

The DirectMet® Difference



DirectMet is based on data received directly from the GOES/GMS weather satellites, not pre-processed images from the web that have no interactive capability. Here are just a few of the other important differences between DirectMet images and images already available on the internet:

DirectMet Package Internet Site
"Paint" by temperature
YES
NO
Customize areas of coverage, background, cities, states, zoom-in at full resolution
YES
NO
Interact with data (read temperatures, latitude/longitude, distances)
YES
NO
Perform sophisticated analysis of tropical systems (intensity, movement, classification)
YES
NO


Obtaining and Using DirectMet® Data at Your School



Several universities and community colleges have developed and are continually updating courses that instruct teachers how to use DirectMet and other weather data in the classroom. For example, see Ramapo College of New Jersey at http://www.rst2.edu/masters/. The courses (which can be used for certification, re-certification, or Master's Degree programs in Earth/Space Sciences, Technology, and several other areas) include extensive training materials, curriculum documents and lesson plans, and the software to receive the data and interact with it in your classroom. Teachers who complete the courses are then provided no-cost, direct, real-time access in their classroom to DirectMet satellite images through the DirectMet Receiving System located at the college or university. The support and curriculum materials can also be purchased without taking the course work, if you choose to incorporate the materials into your own district's training programs or use them independently. Ramapo College offers courses both onsite and online.

Your school or school district can buy a DirectMet Receiving System, which could be located at one of your schools, a technology center, or even the Board of Education. Schools in your district could then use the DirectMet Virtual Receiver software, which allows any number of computers with appropriate software to access data from this centralized "server."

Work with a college or university in your district to incorporate DirectMet into their technology, education, and/or local teacher training programs. Many colleges already provide training for local district teachers. A receiving system located at a college would also support their technology and science programs.

The power and resources of the DirectMet Program can interest teachers and students alike in learning about science, mathematics, geography, and other disciplines. Aggressive educational pricing for both the DirectMet Receiving System and the Virtual Receiver make DirectMet an affordable addition to your curriculum.

If you would like to move your school to the forefront of today's technology and bring real-time science into your classroom so weather "comes alive," contact us at directmet@gst.com today!