Professional Development: FREE Graduate Credits

Yes, you read that correctly - graduate credits for FREE!  I am so excited to share this program with you. 

The American Meteorological Society offers three DataStreme courses:

DataStreme Atmosphere,

DataStreme Ocean

and DataStreme Earth's Climate System.

This is a nation-wide program for K-12 teachers.  The courses are sponsored by AMS, NOAA, NASA and NWS.  When accepted as a participant, your books and graduate credits are completely funded.  The credits are granted by the College at Brockport SUNY. 

The courses are largely conducted on-line using real-time data.  You will need to travel to a class-site 3 or 4 times per course, to meet with the instructors and other students. 

I'll be taking the Earth's Climate System course in the spring and will keep you posted on my progress.  I don't have any first-hand experience with the courses yet, but here's my understanding of how things work:

First, you'll need to find your Local Implementation Team (LIT).  To do so, visit the course page for the course you're interested in and look for a link that mentions finding your LIT - most of them are sorted by state.  (The site also provides a contact for people for whom there is no LIT available - it looks to me like you might still be able to take advantage of the program). 

Then, contact the LIT to learn when there are openings available.  The courses are run in both the spring and fall. 

Fill out and submit your application. 

If you're having trouble navigating the sites or identifying your LIT, please send me a message and I'll be happy to try to help you.  It's a phenomenal opportunity to earn graduate credits.  I don't know if it's the same all over, but the one instructor I met (and thus learned of this program) is always eager to find more participants (I'm under the impression she's responsible for filling the classes), so please share the information with friends and colleagues. 

And maybe I'll see some of my local readers in Albany next spring?!?!?!