Ten years ago, 77% of college students in the U.S. took at least some classes online. But among students that took online classes, only 39% said they offer the same educational value as in-person classes, according to Pew Research. Over the past year, those attitudes have changed. 60% of students and faculty in the U.S. are more optimistic about online learning. And 3 out of 4 students would consider fully-online courses in the future, according to a large survey reported by Inside Higher Ed in April.

As college classes across the US are beginning the fall semester, the demand for online classes only seems to go up, and with it the demand for instructors that can teach online. But what is it like to be an online professor, and how to prepare for this career path? I spoke with Kenny Tapp, who has been teaching meteorology, physical geography, and astronomy, on campus, and for over a decade online — first part-time, and then full-time — at a number of colleges in the U.S.

Links:

Kenny Tapp: www.instagram.com/kennytapp

National Quality Matters Program: https://www.qualitymatters.org/professional-development/toc, Free resources: https://www.qualitymatters.org/qa-resources

Webinars and workshops on online education by the Online Consortium of Oklahoma: https://www.ocolearnok.org/events-and-learning/on-demand-webinars/

Survey on online college learning (2011): https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2011/08/28/i-online-learning/

Attitudes towards online teaching (2021): https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/04/27/survey-reveals-positive-outlook-online-instruction-post-pandemic

Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is a towering figure in the world of climate science. Her work changed our ability to develop climate change solutions and expanded the public’s understanding of the effects of climate change. She recently accepted an offer to be the next Chief Scientist for The Nature Conservancy. And today, June 1, is actually her first day on the new job. 

We met with her a few weeks ago, virtually, to talk about her plans with TNC, about how researchers can better communicate climate change action, and where she sees humanity in this moment it its progress on tackling climate change.

This is our longest episode yet, but it’s worth listening to, because we had a lot to talk about and she had a lot to say.

Hosted by Dr. Toni Klemm (www.toni-klemm.de).

The Nature Conservancy: www.nature.org

Science Moms: www.sciencemoms.com

Katharine Hayhoe on Twitter: www.twitter.com/khayhoe

Katharine Hayhoe’s TED talk: www.ted.com

Collaboration between science and policy is essential to create meaningful legislation and international agreements on climate change and other important issues. We talked to Dr. Julian Reyes, climate scientist and AAAS STP Fellow at the U.S. State Department, about his current work, his career path, and why it is important to have scientists at the policy table. 

AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship: https://www.aaas.org/programs/science-technology-policy-fellowships

List of U.S.-based policy fellowships: https://docs.google.com/

Julian Reyes on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julian-reyes-41029520

Carbon Brief: https://www.carbonbrief.org/

Native American Tribes have lived in North America for thousands of years, navigating various climates to support their livelihoods. Yet, their expertise is often left out of the conversation around climate change adaptation. The USGS Climate Adaptation Science Center (CASC) network have established close partnerships with Native Tribes, to produce actionable science for resource managers and to provide research and training opportunities for Tribal university students to integrate traditional knowledge and scientific research. Adrienne Wootten, postdoc at the South Central CASC, talked to three Tribal undergraduate students working at the center: Peyton Cavnar (Apache and Comanche) and Matthew Armor (Chickasaw), students at the University of Oklahoma, and Kieren Daley Laursen (Chickasaw) at Colorado State University. Tribal engagement at the USGS Climate Adaptation Science Centers: www.usgs.gov/ecosystems/climate-adaptation-science-centers/native-communities/ South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center: www.southcentralclimate.org Chickasaw Nation School-to-Work Program: www.chickasaw.net/Services/School-to-Work-Program.aspx Department of Geography and Environmental Sustainability, University of Oklahoma: geography.ou.edu

We’ve all visited museums. We know what art museums and history museums look like. But what does a museum look like that focuses on climate and climate change? What exactly does it do, and who works there? To answer these questions, we chatted with Dr. Dilshanie Perera, who in September joined the New York City Climate Museum as postdoctoral fellow in climate and inequality. New York City Climate Museum: www.climatemuseum.org Climate Ambassador Card: www.climatemuseum.org/ambassador Internship, fellowship, and volunteer opportunities: www.climatemuseum.org/join-us Dr. Dilshanie Perera: www.dilshanieperera.com Webinars by the NYC Climate Museum: Reimagining Museums for Climate Action: Mark Chambers and Miranda Massie (Youtube), Black Lives and the Climate Crisis (Youtube), Covid’s Lessons for Climate and Inequality: from Sacrifice Zones to Justice (Youtube) Exhibits and art competitions focused on weather and climate: "2 Degrees: The Weather, Humans, and Their Climate" (Dresden, Germany, website in German), National Weather Center Biennale (Norman, Oklahoma, website), "Surge" (La Conner, Washington, website) Climate Museum UK (London, UK): www.climatemuseumuk.org

Spoken in 11 percent of all U.S. households, Spanish is the second-most common language in the U.S. behind English. But when it comes to communicating the risks and dangers of tornadoes, hurricanes, or other severe weather events, meteorologists around the country use terms as they see fit, without knowing if their diverse audiences understand them and act appropriately. Joseph Trujillo, a Peruvian master student at the University of Oklahoma, is trying to change that. Using his expertise in Spanish, meteorology, and weather broadcasting, he is developing a unified set of weather terms in Spanish, and he is developing trainings for professional broadcast meteorologists to use them.  Check out existing weather dictionaries in Spanish: glossary.ametsoc.org  Learn more about FACETs (Forecasting A Continuum of Environmental Threats) and the Probabilistic Hazards Information (PHI) experiment: nssl.noaa.gov/projects/facets/  Follow Joseph Trujillo on Twitter: twitter.com/LatinWx ... and LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/joseph-trujillo

Seven in ten researchers and engineers in the U.S. work in the the business sector, and only two in ten stay at universities. But many college graduates and postdocs aim primarily for tenure-track careers in academia. At the same time, many graduates and postdocs lack key soft skills, like communication, team work, or leadership, which are essential for working in the commercial, non-profit, or government sector. We sat down with Dr. Phil Clifford, a professor and associate dean in medicine at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and co-lead of myIDP, a AAAS initiative to provide early career researchers with guidance for acquiring soft skills and identifying careers that suit them. In light of COVID-19 and hiring freezes at many universities and businesses, we also talked about how the job market changed, who is most impacted, and how we can improve our chances for jobs that are still available. Subscribe to the ECCF Podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, or Spotify. AAAS myIDP: https://myidp.sciencecareers.org Science and Engineering workforce by sector in the U.S. (2017): https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20198/s-e-workers-in-the-economy "You Need a Game Plan", essay about myIDP in Science Magazine (2012): https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2012/09/you-need-game-plan

According to the USDA, U.S. ranchers own nearly 32 million beef cows, worth about $70 billion. As managing these herds and the grasslands they need for forage becomes more difficult due to climate change, we talked to Dr. Hailey Wilmer about the CARM (Collaborative Adaptive Rangeland Management) project in Colorado, that brings ranchers and agricultural researchers together to find management solutions that are informed by science and work in the real world. Host: Dr. Toni Klemm, Texas A&M University Dr. Hailey Wilmer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/hnw2 The CARM project: https://www.ars.usda.gov/plains-area/fort-collins-co/center-for-agricultural-resources-research/rangeland-resources-systems-research/docs/range/adaptive-grazing-management/research/

In part 2 of their interview, Adrienne Wootten chatted with Jessica Whitehead about her day-to-day job as North Carolina's Chief Resilience Officer, and some of the soft skills needed to collaborate across state agencies and with public leaders. Jessica Whitehead on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrJessWhitehead North Carolina's Department of Public Safety on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NCPublicSafety North Carolina's State Climate Report (released March 2020): https://ncics.org/programs/nccsr/

Adrienne Wootten chatted with Dr. Jessica Whitehead, North Carolina's Chief Resilience Officer, about her fascinating career path and her work. In part one of this two-part series, Adrienne talked to her about her career path from being an undergraduate physics major to being the state's first Chief Resilience Officer. Subscribe to the ECCF podcast to not miss part two of this series, about her work helping North Carolinians prepare for climate variability and climate change, which we'll post next week. Follow Jessica Whitehead on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrJessWhitehead North Carolina's Department of Public Safety: https://twitter.com/NCPublicSafety

On today’s episode we talk to bison rancher turned bison researcher, Jeff Martin, a doctoral candidate* in Wildlife and Fisheries Sciences at Texas A&M University. His research explores how bison in North America are affected by climate change. Find out more about Jeff at https://bisonjeff.weebly.com and https://twitter.com/bisonjeff He recently gave a lecture about his research at the Mammoth Site in South Dakota. You can watch it here: https://www.facebook.com/TheMammothSite/videos/476325093289112/ *Update (May 12, 2020): Jeff passed his doctoral defense. Congratulations, Dr. Martin! You can watch his defense presentation at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqDmnxeYkLE

We talked to Dr. Sarah McAnulty, a squid biologist at the University of Connecticut and the Executive Director of Skype A Scientist, an organization that connects scientists and classrooms around the world through video chat. We wanted to know what her motivation was to start this organization while also working on her dissertation, how it works, and why scientists should participate. Hosted by Dr. Toni Klemm, with tech support from the Department of Ecosystem Science and Management at Texas A&M University. Sign up as a teacher or scientist on https://www.skypeascientist.com Donate at https://www.patreon.com/SkypeAScientist Find Sarah on Twitter at https://twitter.com/SarahMackAttack And follow Skype A Scientist at https://twitter.com/SkypeScientist

For our inaugural episode we talked to Dr. Kristen Weiss, a researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the communications coordinator for the Long-Term Ecological Research Network, or LTER. We talked to her about her career path from marine research to science communication, about the challenges of climate change from a communications perspective, and about how to become a better science communicator. Find out more about Kristen's upcoming all-female sailing expedition: www.exxpedition.com Learn more about LTER: www.lternet.edu Kristen's personal blog and her research: www.kristencheriweiss.com ECCN on Twitter (twitter.com/ECClimate) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/ecclimatenetwork)