Teaching

“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire” – William Butler Yeats

Our planet is vast, complicated and dynamic, and we live in a time of great change. As undergraduates, we benefited from professors who lived William Butler Yeats’ attitude about teaching, “Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” We now strive to emulate our mentors in our own teaching. Sharing the passion and drive for understanding of both the known and unknown with our students is one of the great joys of working here at the University of Arizona. The terrific advantage of teaching and learning at a major research university is the opportunity to use the very latest tools to help our students make their own discoveries about their planet. Our research benefits daily from the energy and enthusiasm our students bring to their work.

The novelty of our research program lies in the integrated design of a laboratory that fully utilizes new numerical modeling techniques in earth system studies, with in-situ and remote-sensing observations of the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and terrestrial biosphere. We feel it is vital to provide more quantitative tools to assess, describe and bridge the various climatic aspects of geosciences. Our NOAA-funded climate modeling laboratory bridges the gap between modern research practices and student education in an area of growing national interest – earth’s climate system. The main objectives are:
to fully utilize modern numerical modeling techniques in earth system science to gain new knowledge of the physical and biogeochemical impacts of climate change
to expand this new understanding of the global climate system to paleoclimate
to create synergistic and integrated learning experiences to better educate future scientists and professionals about regional and global climate change impacts