NRES/METR/BSEN 479/879: Hydroclimatology—A Peer Review of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio

Rising temperatures and extreme hydrometeorological and climate events are evidences of a changing climate. An increasing population together with their demands for food, energy and water make changes in climate evidence the need to train a new generation of multidisciplinary professionals with a clear understanding of the effects of a changing climate in their activities. Historically, climate sciences were used for scientific and weather operational contexts and engineers applied stationary assumptions for multi-term planning. My goal is to identify elements built from classroom experiences about (a) the suitability of a hydroclimatology course for engineers and scientists; (b) the multidisciplinary skills; (c) computational skills. I developed a completely new course in content and format. The content aims to show students local-to-global hydroclimatological experiences on science, engineering and entrepreneurship as “intellectual incentives”. The format aims to explore different forms of communicating knowledge from theoretical (lectures) to practical (labs), to explanatory (discussions). I assessed two classic aspects: (a) understanding; (b) application on three groups of students from environmental, engineering (3), and atmospheric (3) backgrounds. While analytical understanding was based on the students responses in what I call a 3-dimentional assessment (multiple choice, specific question responses, and analytical responses) the midterm, the practical understanding was based on students performance to use computational and modeling skills