Essentials of Meteorology - An Invitation to the Atmosphere
I taught an online class this semester on meteorology, and this was the textbook I was given. I always hold my breath a bit concerning textbooks, because I've taught chemistry, physics, cell biology, and meteorology...and my background includes two degrees in neuroscience. I never stop reading. As a deaf person who doesn't listen to music, go to movies, or watch television much, reading is my source of relaxation as well as involved in my work. I tend towards either nonfiction or classical literature lately, and much of my reading involves science and specifically weather. Global warming is such a hot topic now, and I've wanted to stay on top of this also because of my interest and ethical work as concerns deaf people in catastrophic occurences.
Anyway, this was definitely one of the better textbooks. My students didn't start having problems until the fifth and sixth chapters, which were way too technical on air pressure and wind for an online course and for students who were taking this class with no prior physics. Since physics is deeply involved in weather science, it would have been much easier to teach those chapters in a classroom, though I am now exploring avenues to teach these very things online.
I felt that the author of this textbook was speaking to the students this time instead of writing to his peer group (which is how many textbook and journal articles write today). The information is interesting, and thorough, and the textbook can definitely be adapted to younger classes or beginning science classrooms. It would just take some time to adapt it better and unfortunately, the university I taught at just changed their online program which everyone was required to learn at the same time they were expected to also do classwork. I also had to cut down the amount to be learned because it was an eight week course, instead of a semester course. That also complicated things...but I thought on the whole this was a good book, and I am continuing to read the rest of it for my own personal understanding.
(Karen L. Sadler - Pittsburgh, PA)
Anyway, this was definitely one of the better textbooks. My students didn't start having problems until the fifth and sixth chapters, which were way too technical on air pressure and wind for an online course and for students who were taking this class with no prior physics. Since physics is deeply involved in weather science, it would have been much easier to teach those chapters in a classroom, though I am now exploring avenues to teach these very things online.
I felt that the author of this textbook was speaking to the students this time instead of writing to his peer group (which is how many textbook and journal articles write today). The information is interesting, and thorough, and the textbook can definitely be adapted to younger classes or beginning science classrooms. It would just take some time to adapt it better and unfortunately, the university I taught at just changed their online program which everyone was required to learn at the same time they were expected to also do classwork. I also had to cut down the amount to be learned because it was an eight week course, instead of a semester course. That also complicated things...but I thought on the whole this was a good book, and I am continuing to read the rest of it for my own personal understanding.
(Karen L. Sadler - Pittsburgh, PA)
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