AOS 401: Meteorological Measurements

During the Spring Semester of 2017, I was a Teaching Assistant for AOS 401 Meteorological Measurements. The objective of AOS 401 Meteorological Measurements is for advanced undergraduate and introductory level graduate students in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences to gain practical experience in the implementation, quality control, analysis, and presentation of meteorological and climatological observations in a team setting. The class is organized in 3 parts; introduction to meteorological experimentation, instrument deployment, and data analysis and presentation. For the first phase, I was able to lead a lecture on the Campbell Scientific IRGASON (Infrared Gas Analyzer and Sonic Anemometer) instrument. I also orchestrated lab experiments designed to introduce students to basic meteorological instrumentation. For the second phase, I planned two instrument deployment trips for the class where I handled vehicle reservations, a housing search, and coordination and collaboration with the Green Lake Nature Conservancy. I used my extensive field experience help teach a class of students how to establish experimental objectives to seek answers to hypotheses, properly install eddy covariance and met tower instrumentation, and conduct air quality measurements using gas analyzers. For the third phase, I used my data analysis and coding skills to help teach students how to dive into the numbers and carefully choose which data is trustworthy and can help us answer the questions posed in the hypothesis. This rewarding experience was capped off by a final presentation by the students at which the entire department was invited.