SCD educational activities

Colorado Computational Science Fair

For the seventh consecutive year, SCD co-hosted the Colorado Computational Science Fair (CCSF) with Colorado State University to encourage high school students to learn more about computational science. The 2000 CCSF was held on April 29. Over 100 students from Colorado and Wyoming entered over 70 projects into the competition with many of the projects using internet connections provided by NCAR during the fair. Group and individual projects were submitted in the areas of Information Technology and Computational Science. Student projects in computational science were grouped for judging based on the highest level math class the student has completed. Prizes were awarded by Silicon Graphics, Inc. Links to the student projects are at http://www.scd.ucar.edu/ois/ccsf/

Computing grants to classrooms

SCD continues to provide access to its supercomputers for undergraduate and graduate university classes. Computing resources are provided for students engaged in modeling and simulations requiring high performance computers, and for classes studying recently introduced architectures. In FY2000, 26 students in 5 classes used SCD's supercomputing resources, accumulating over 565 CPU hours on NCAR's Cray J90s and IBM SP.

SC2000 education program

Ginger Caldwell is the Education Program Publications Chair for the SC2000 Education Program. In this capacity during FY2000, she participated in the development of the NSF grant for the National Computational Science Leadership Program and in the implementation of the first part of this grant at the SC2000 conference in November 2000. Twenty-five teacher teams of four teachers each applied to participate in this program which will have significant representation from low-wealth schools. They will receive 40 hours of training in computational biology, chemistry, and physics at the SC2000 conference.

The summer 2001 workshop will provide an additional 80 hours of training. Support for the teacher teams will be provided throughout the year. Over $1 million in grants have been awarded for this program so far with half from NSF. If NSF funds the second cohort beginning in November 2001, this will rise to $2 million.

SCD's participation in this national program will ensure that we are aware of the outcomes and strategies for enhancing computational science leadership among secondary teachers.

Increasing girls' interest in math and science

Ginger Caldwell coordinated a visit on December 2, 1999 by 20 eighth-grade girls attending Wheat Ridge High School; the goal was to interest them in computational science classes and to encourage them to continue taking as much math and science as possible in high school. Lana Soller, Pam Gillman, and Marla Meehl of SCD spoke to the students about careers in computing.

Visualization and Enabling Technologies Section education activities

The results of VETS' efforts had a lot of public visibility. Imagery appeared in Wired Magazine (forest fires), Computer Graphics World (more forest fires), Science (MOZART), Scientific American (MM5 cyclone), NOVA/Frontline, and The Weather Channel (climate), Communications of the ACM (CCM3 at T170), and a Russian journal for young scientists (astrophysical turbulence).

VETS staff gave presentations at numerous conferences and events including SC, AMS, AAAS, 3Dexpo, the DOE Computer Graphics Forum, the Conference on World Affairs, and a sell-out presentation of "Visualizing Our Planet" at the NIST auditorium. The complete list is provided here:

U.S. government visitors

6/12/2000: Middleton: Vislab presentation to Tom Gosling, Head of U.S. Space Command, and friends.

6/19/2000: Middleton organized a special Vislab presentation for Rita Colwell, Director of the U.S. NSF. Middleton brought in researchers Bob Gall (MMM), Terry Clark (MMM), Louisa Emmons (ACD), Mark Rast (HAO), Jeffrey Kiehl (CGD), and Bruce Carmichael (RAP) and choreographed a group presentation. It went exceedingly well.

8/2000: Scheitlin: Vislab presentation to the Honorable Wayne Allard, Colorado Senator, and staffer Roger Brown.

8/2000: Scheitlin: Vislab demonstration to 16 Explorers' Club professors and engineers.

8/2000: Scheitlin: Vislab demonstration to Celia Chen (RAP) and colleagues (4 total).

8/2000: Scheitlin: Vislab demonstration to CAA visitors (Taiwan), Bill Mahoney (RAP), and Celia Chen (RAP).

9/25/2000: Clyne, Middleton, O'Lear: Vislab demonstration and discussion with visitors from the National Security Agency.

9/2000: Scheitlin: Vislab presentation to NSF/GEO Budget Officer Karen Clark (interrupted).

Visiting scientists

11/1999: Scheitlin: Vislab presentation for Terry Clark and colleagues.

5/2000: Scheitlin: Vislab demonstration for 30 aerospace engineers visiting NCAR.

5/2000: Scheitlin: Vislab demonstration for Chaoqun Liu, Ph.D., Professor of Mathematics and Director of the Center for Numerical Simulation and Modeling from Louisiana Tech University.

International visitors

10/1999: Scheitlin: Visualization presentation to Madam Sun, Director of the National Climate Change Coordinating Office at the State Development Planning Council.

10/1999: Scheitlin: Ms. Zheng, Researcher.

10/1999: Scheitlin: Vislab presentation to Walter Short and Debra Lew (NREL), and others.

10/1999: Scheitlin: Vislab presentation to Louisa Emmons (ACD) and 12 colleagues.

3/27/2000: Middleton: Vislab presentation with Rick Anthes (UCAR) and visitors from Taiwan.

4/2000: Scheitlin: Vislab demonstration to Ms. Ellen Burack, senior policy advisor in Canada's Climate Change Secretariat.

General public

10/12/1999: Middleton & Hasler: "Visualizing Our Planet", NIST Auditorium, General Public, 600 attending, several hundred more turned away.

11/1999: Scheitlin - Vislab presentation for Lucy Warner and Geoffrey Haines.

Media

2/1/2000: Middleton - Denver Museum of Natural History, presentation to museum staff and major donors on SGI multi-pipe system and Trimension display, "Visualizing Our Planet."

5/2000: Scheitlin - Hosted presentation of CAT visualization for Larry Radke, Mel Shapiro, Terry Clark, and a representative from Aviation Week who was writing an article on the subject.

5/18/2000 PBS aired the NOVA/Frontline "special report" titled "What's up with the Weather?". The 2-hour show focused on the issue of global warming and included interviews with NCAR scientists Tom Wigley and Kevin Trenberth. Scientists were interviewed from all over the world, but a significant portion of the show featured the NCAR site as one of the premier climate research institutions in the world and included an interview with Wigley in the SCD vislab. Several of our scientfic visualizations were shown repeatedly in the course of the program including the CCM2-T170, CSM with increasing CO2, and the MM5 East Asia cyclone.

9/2000: Scheitlin - Vislab hosting for media article by Grenada Media (Savage Planet), Anatta, Larry Radke, Terry Clark.

Professional meetings

11/13/1999-11/19/1999: Visualization Group, Hays - SC1999, Portland, Oregon, "The Virtual Earth System."

11/18/1999: Middleton & Clyne - SC1999, Portland, Oregon, "Visualizing Large Data," SGI Exhibit.

11/1999: Boote, Clyne, Scheitlin, Middleton - SC1999 in Portland, Oregon; "The Virtual Earth System."

2/2000: Boote, Clyne, Middleton, Scheitlin, Cross - AAAS2000, Washington, D.C., "The Virtual Earth System" exhibit.

1/2000: Boote, Clyne, Middleton, Scheitlin - AMS2000, Long Beach, CA, "The Virtual Earth System" Exhibit.

1/12/2000: Middleton - AMS2000, Long Beach, CA, "Visualizing Our Planet."

4/13/2000: Middleton: Invited presentation for the Conference on World Affairs, Boulder, CO, "Scenes from Climate."

5/2000: Clyne: Chair and panelist for "PC Graphics" program at the annual DOECGF conference.

5/2000: Clyne: Chaired the Visualization Program at the Cray User's Group (CUG) meeting in Denmark. Clyne hosted two sessions for the event.

5/9/2000: Middleton: 3Dexpo Conference, San Francisco, CA, invited presentation, "Visualizing the Earth System."

8/8/2000: Middleton: SPARC/Collaboratory Mini-Symposium, Boulder, CO, "Elements of an Earth System Collaboratory."

Students (K - postdoc)

11/1999: Scheitlin: Visualization presentation to CU computational physics class (2 hours).

3/2000: Clyne: Vislab presentation to a group of "Gifted and Talented" students from Louisville Middle School (3 hours).

3/29/2000: Boote: Boote had an Arvada West high school student "shadow" him as part of the student's career day (8 hours).

4/2000: Scheitlin: Vislab demonstration for "Take your Kids to Work Day" participants (Wes Wildcat, Gene Harano, and their sons) (2 hours).

4/2000: Clyne: Vislab presentation to a group of Louisville Middle School (LMS) 8th graders as part of the LMS career day (3 hours).

5/18/2000: Boote provided a Visualization presentation to a group from Boulder Prep High School (4 hours).

5/31/2000: Boote provided a visualization presentation to a group from Granada High School (4 hours).

6/2000: Scheitlin: Vislab demonstration to two separate SOARS student demos (4 hours).

6/2000: Scheitlin: Vislab demonstration for 15 students from Gulf Coast University of Florida (2 hours).

7/2000: Scheitlin: CU students hosted by Pete Peterson (2 hours).

NCAR staff

8/2000: Scheitlin: Vislab demonstration to eight NCAR/SCD computer operators.

8/31/2000: Middleton: NCAR Strategic Planning Workshop, organized Collaboratory and Knowledge Systems segment and presented "Collaboratory and Knowledge Systems Possibilities."

Vendors

9/26/2000: Middleton, Kellie: Vislab demonstration to visitors from IBM Austin.

6/2000: Scheitlin: Vislab demonstration to DC Beltway vendors taking CSES short course (30 people).

Technical Consulting Group outreach and education

The SCD Technical Consulting Group's outreach activities are one of their primary functions. These activities are detailed in this report at
Technical consulting services,
Code migration for the IBM SP complex and Compaq ES40 cluster, and
Production computing support.

TCG's educational activities are described at Training classes and seminars sponsored by the SCD Technical Consulting Group.

Digital Information Group outreach, education, and training

The SCD Digital Information Group's education activities are detailed in this report at DIG outreach, education, and training.

Computational Science Section education, outreach, and knowledge transfer

Cecelia DeLuca served as a science mentor for SOARS protege Brandeis Hill.

Cecelia DeLuca and Steve Hammond organized seminars and workshops on software engineering, and on software framework design and use.

During FY2000, CSS staff gave 20 scientific and technical presentations.

Network Engineering and Technology Section outreach and knowledge transfer

NETS presented seminars as part of the SCD Seminar Series, and NETS personnel attended and presented at numerous conferences, meetings, and training sessions. The numerous trip reports and presentations produced by NETS staff are published at: http://www.scd.ucar.edu/nets/docs/reports/trips/ and http://www.scd.ucar.edu/nets/presentations/

SCD ASR - Table of contents