SWIFT Outreach
POSTED ON: Tuesday, May 18, 2021 12:00 AM by Christine Maceo
The mission of the US Naval Academy Oceanography Department's Severe Weather In-Field Training (SWIFT) is to engage midshipmen in forecasting, observing, and verifying severe convective storms. While on their annual "storm-chasing" trip, the SWIFT Team engages local students in STEM Outreach. The USNA STEM Center Faculty trains the SWIFT midshipmen in hands-on STEM activities and provides supplies for the outreach events. In 2021, the SWIFT team visited Wagoner High School in Wagoner, OK on the morning of 18 May, 2021. SWIFT engaged eighty 10th and 11th grade students in this rural community, which lies about 30 minutes outside of Tulsa.
MIDN Julia Davis, Elena Gilbert, Sara Vianco, Ben Sell, Langston Arnold, and Alex Schuerch, along with Oceanography Faculty LCDR Matt Burich and and CDR Frank Carmody, led the students in project-based weather-related academic modules, including the Fibonacci Sequence, the Inverse-Square Law, Anemometers, Tornado Tubes and two Engineering Design Projects on projectiles and hydrostatic pressure. In addition to STEM outreach, the midshipmen discussed USNA and STEM majors and careers with the Wagoner High School students. SWIFT Outreach was a very positive project-based learning and leadership activity for the Midshipmen, and they had great success with safe storm-chasing.
The USNA STEM Center's student programs are sponsored by ONR, the Naval Academy Foundation and Ernst Volgeneau.
Category: General Interest