The University of North Dakota (UND) has a long tradition of educating students from the Upper Midwest, including underrepresented rural and Native American students. UND's strong programs in atmospheric science, earth systems science and policy, geography, engineering, and teacher education will form the foundation of a new summer program aimed at educating undergraduates about issues related to global climate change. Working with faculty, students will use NASA Earth observation data sets to conduct research and design webcasts to present their research findings. For example, the Aqua and Terra data will be used to look at changes in temperature, land use and land cover, and the spread of the polar ice sheet. The students will also use the projections of future climate from GCMs, including the GISS model from NASA. The UND Atmospheric Science department currently trains students to produce professional broadcasts as part of the Studio One program, so the production expertise and production facilities are already in place. These webcasts will be crafted in such a way as to be accessible for non-scientists, and will be posted on the UND web site for public access.

This summer program will encourage undergraduates to pursue a master's degree in the field, e.g. UND Earth Systems Science and Policy Climate and Environmental Change master's degree. The Dakota Science Center (DSC), a local educational outreach organization, will work with pre-service and in-service teachers to develop additional educational materials for both grades 6-12 teachers and the general public. The program will expand to teacher education and out-of-school programming, including the continuing utilization of webcasts created by the undergraduate researchers. The engineering component will add hands-on learning experiences in remote sensing equipment design and sustainable, clean energy technologies through its existing PowerOn! mobile science learning lab.