CIRCLE of ILLUMINATION SCIENCE EDUCATION

  • Professional development for upper elementary and middle school teachers coupled with high quality curricular materials in atmospheric and environmental science.

  • Specializing in data literacy and data visualization in atmospheric and environmental science.

    *With an emphasis on, but not limited to, data collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Weather Service based on the U.S.

NOTICE and WONDER……

Photo Sheared Mammatus Cloud. Stillwater, Minnesota. October 2019. Copyright Amy Lilienfeld/Circle of Illumination Science Education.

One cannot help but notice and wonder about something like this unusual “sheared mammatus cloud”. But like all clouds it is a phenomenon indicating the incredible things going on in our atmosphere.

What secrets do YOU think this cloud is trying to tell us?

But all clouds, in general, are just one element of the highly complex phenomena called “Weather” and “Climate”. Although they operate at vastly different spatial and temporal scales weather and climate are comprised of many of the same elements: air temperature, precipitation, humidity, wind direction and speed, and atmospheric pressure. Each of these elements is constantly changing but also often interacts with some of the other variables in a highly complex system. One of the major goals of Circle of Illumination Science Education is to help unpack some of this complexity while emphasizing the big ideas in a way that all teachers, regardless of prior knowledge, will be able to comprehend.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WEBINARS FALL 2026: Please see webinar offerings below for the start of the new school year 2026. Please note sample lesson plans and/or hands-on activities will be provided for all webinar participants as part of their participation. Please note that dates and other details will be announced in mid-late August so stay tuned!

INTRODUCING THIRD GRADERS TO REAL-TIME WEATHER DATA and DATA VISUALIZATION: METEOGRAMS

(Meets NGSS 3-ESS2-1. Represent data in tables and graphical displays to describe typical weather conditions expected during a particular season (https://www.nextgenscience.org/topic-arrangement/3weather-and-climate)).

Photo Copyright © Amy Lilienfeld 2020

What better place to start the process of introducing third graders to weather data than with the formation of dew? But dew formation is the result of one of the most important processes in weather: condensation. When air becomes saturated with water vapor, i.e., when relative humidity reaches 100%, condensation will occur. The temperature at which this occurs is called the air’s “dewpoint temperature”. Although at ground level this is associated with the formation— often overnight — of both dew as well as fog at higher altitudes it is associated with the formation of clouds.

In this webinar participants will be introduced to meteograms created by the Wyoming Weather Web (associated with the University of Wyoming Dept. of Atmospheric Science) and the American Meteorological Society. One of the meteograms that will be used will show how when air temperature and dewpoint temperature coincide fog will form.

But what is even more amazing is that this data can be easily downloaded into a form that teachers can understand and make available to their students for the creation of graphs and other data visualization tools!! In this webinar teachers will learn where and how to access this data as well as how to intepret key variables so they can prepare simpler, smaller datasets