Well, I certainly intended to update the site more than once a month! Maybe that’s hoping for too much ;). It’s February now, and as Pa astutely observed to Laura, “There’s only this month, then February is a short month, and March will be spring.” In other words, spring is right around the corner! It’s a regular Chinook outside my door in the last week, with temperatures kissing 60 degrees and snow melting away as fast as it can. So far, this winter has been colder than average in eastern Nebraska, but a little warm weather to end February could nudge us back toward normal. The winter has not been too intrusive this year.
I’ve made little new progress on my research, as I’ve been putting together a dissertation proposal to explain to everyone what I’ve done so far. Things should get rolling in the next couple of months, though. One of my specific goals in the next couple of months is to get in touch with teachers to talk curriculum. I’d like their input into creating lesson plans that connect the English lesson of reading LIW books, and the history lesson of her story, with the science concepts of weather and climate. The Laura books are a great way to introduce weather to children… Laura was a descriptive and rather accurate observer in her books!
I will be presenting an overview of the Long Winter to a group of mainly climate scientists in Des Moines, Iowa, in the first week of March, at the Climate Prediction Application Science Workshop. I am hoping to show them how communicating about weather and climate through a story like Laura’s can get new audiences interested in our sciences!
Also, I’ll be making an appearance as a guest on the blog radio show “Trundlebedtales”, with Sarah Uthoff: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/trundlebedtales
Stay in touch!
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