This proposal addresses "Objective 2" of the listed Project Objectives for the NASA sponsored grant program, "Innovations in Global Climate Change Education (IGCCE)," namely to: "Increase the number of underrepresented/underserved undergraduate students prepared for employment and/or to enter graduate school in technical fields relevant to global climate change." We propose to develop two new upper division courses in climate science offered by the Mathematics department at California State University, Northridge (CSUN), and to improve four existing courses in climate science offered by the Geography Department and one experimental graduate level course offered by the Physics and Astronomy Department. These improvements will be made in part through the inclusion of NASA data sets and simulations based on NASA data.

The CSUN Mathematics Department will play a key role by allowing math majors to use a sequence of these courses for degree credit for the Applied Mathematical Sciences B.S. degree. This degree program, in turn, will prepare students for Ph.D. programs in atmospheric physics, climate modeling, or closely related technical fields. Additionally, courses in the Physics and Astronomy Department and the Geography Department strengthened by this project will increase student understanding and awareness of the scientific basis for Global Climate Change predictions. This proposal also has the support and cooperation of the CSUN Geography Department, and the Physics and Astronomy Department (in particular, Co-I Cristina Cadavid is the chair of the Physics and Astronomy Department). It is intended that these curricular additions will be institutionalized at CSUN and be replicable at other institutions. The courses will initially be taught by the PI and Co-Is at CSUN, but in subsequent semesters, as the program becomes institutionalized, they will be taught by other faculty members in the relevant departments. A continuing faculty seminar on climate science, part of this proposal, will provide existing faculty members with the background information needed to teach these new and revised courses.

Co-I Robert Fovell of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at UCLA will collaborate in the development of the courses identified in this project. In addition, two NASA partners Annmarie Eldering, Deputy Manager of the Earth Atmospheric Science Section at JPL and Greg Osterman of the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer Science Team at JPL, as well as David Seidel, Deputy Education Director at NASA JPL will assist in making available already existing data sets and NASA simulations based on NASA data available for this project. Co-I Cox and Dr. Vicki Drake of the Department of Earth Sciences at Santa Monica Community College (SMCC), and Co-PI on a 2010 NASA CIPAIR grant, will work collaboratively on the development and exchange of curricular material in Earth Sciences courses at SMCC and Climate Change and Remote Sensing courses at CSUN. Drake and Cox share a common research and teaching interest in remote sensing and climate change and will work collaboratively on developing these materials.