Presentations, Conferences and More

• 2020

• 07 February: Presented to Grade 3 students from Sir James Douglas Elementary, at UVic.

• 2019

• 17 May: Presented to Girls in Science at UVic.
• 24 April: Presented to Arc Academy of Inquiry.
• 14 November: Presented to Grade 1 students from Victoria School for Ideal Education, at UVic.

• 2018

• 13 November: Presented to students from St Andrew’s High School.
• 01 November: Presented to students at Arc School of Inquiry.
• 21 May: Met with 2nd Woodwyn Guides, weather, and atmospheric science.
• 24 April: Interviewed by Luisa Alvarez CHEK TV on warm weather.
• 09 April: Presented to grade 4-5 class at Sir James Douglas.
• 09 March: Presented to 25 homeschool children and parents.
• 17 February: Presented to groups of high school students and parents at an Explore UVic event.

• 2017

  • 14 December: Presented to students from St Andrew’s High School at UVic.
  • 16 November: Presented to 24 students from Grade 11 Earth Science at UVic.
  • 13 May: Presented to two groups of 24 Girl Guides aged 9-12 and their leaders at their Vancouver Island meeting at UVic.
  14 March: Presented to 21 grade three students from Sir James Douglas School.
  • 14 February: Presented to 16 homeschool children and their parents on concepts in Weather.
  • 02-16 February: Presented three lectures on Weather and Climate on Vancouver Island through UVic Continuing Studies.
  • 24 January: Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Meteorological Society on the topic "The Vancouver Island School-Based Weather Station Network". The Conference theme was Observations Lead the Way.

• 2016

  • 02 May: Presented to 20 grade 11 students from Mount Douglas High School who visited UVic.
  • 27 April: I visited Shoreline Middle School and spoke with 250 students about the weather station project.
  • 22 January: I met with members of the Al Frescoes, a local painting group, who wanted to learn more about weather, clouds, and what goes on in the sky in general.
  • 21-25 January: Guest lecturer in EOS 110 course at UVic on basic topics in weather.
  • 12 January: I led a presentation with five graduate students of topics in weather and climate to 120 children from grades four and five and their teachers from Sidney Elementary School.

• 2015

  • 13 December: Interviewed by CHEK TV about recent storms and damaging winds and what the School-Based Weather Station Network records.
  • 08 December: Interviewed by CHEK TV about recent storms and our weather station network.
  • 03 December: Spoke to 38 children at Glenlyon-Norfolk School about weather and climate.
  • 04 November: Spoke to 30 children at Colwood Elementary School.
  • 18-24 September: Guest lecturer in EOS 110 on basic topics in weather and the Earth's atmosphere.
  • 23 July: Spoke to about 30 people at the Hornby Island Natural History Centre Speaker Series.
  • 07 July: Interview with CHEK TV on the topic of a summer storm that dumped a lot of rain on a small area (Central Saanich).
  • 02 July: Interview with CBC Radio on the topic of a local "heat wave".
  • 15 June: Spoke to about 30 teachers at the 17th Annual Meeting, Pacific Northwest Section, National Association of Geoscience Teachers.
  • 01 June: Attended Educators' Day at CMOS Congress 2015 and spoke to 20 teachers about the weather station network and the kind of outreach I do with young students.
  • 26 May: 16 Grade 2 to Grade 4 students from Elizabeth Buckley School visited the lab.
  • 21 May: 25 Grade 6 students from Hans Helgesen School visited the lab.
  • 14 April: Travelled to Colwood School to talk to a class about weather and climate.
  • 26 March: Talked with seven students from the Science Venture program (UVic) about automatic weather stations and some interesting principles and facts of weather. These middle school students had built their own automatic weather stations using Arduino microcontrollers. They also designed their own web pages to provide access to the data.
  • 07 March: Presented at IdeaFest 2015 at the University of Victoria. Weather and Climate: From Vancouver Island to the World. 50 people were in the audience.
  • 06 March: Interviewed on CBC Radio On The Island about the weather station network and IdeaFest 2015.
  • 15 January: Presented at the Hornby Island Literary Lunch. Approximately 50 people were present, members of the local community.
  • 14 January: Presented to the students at Hornby Island School. Approximately 25 children were present.

• 2014

  • 03 December: Presented to 30 kids from Torquay Elementary School with help from several graduate students in the Climate Lab.
  • 01 December: Presented to 40 kids at Glenlyn-Norfolk School.
  • 09 October: Presented to 24 kids visiting the Climate Lab from St. Patrick's School.
  • 12 September: Presented to 11 kids in Science Venture "Strike" camp.
  • 14 August: Interviewed by Global News Vancouver Island about a local drought (or not!) and what the School-Based Weather Station Network records.
  • 2 June: Presented weather and climate concepts to 14 grade 4/5 students from Elizabeth Buckley School.
  • 30 April:

    Presented to 27 grade 4/5 students from Campus View Elementary. Here are some of the things they saw.

    
  • 25 February: Presented weather concepts to grade 4/5 students at Colwood Elementary School (24 kids).
  • 19 February: Presented to students in the UVic ENGL 478 Special Studies in Literature and Environment class. The topics were Climate Change, The End of the World, and Climate "Skeptics".
  • 18, 25 February: Presented to Continuing Education group on Climate & Climate Change.
  • 13 February: Presented to two classes of Grade 4/5 kids at Sir James Douglas - about 50 kids.
  • 04 February: Presented to a group of home-schooled kids in Grade 4/5.
  • 10 January: Presented to kids in Grade 4/5 at Sundance School.

• 2013

  • December: Presented to kids in Grade 4 at Glenlyon-Norfolk School.
  • August: Attended the Summer Institute for Big Data at the Department of Computer Science, UVic (26-29 August).
  • June: Attended EdCamp West at UVic. (23 June).
  • March: Presented at UVic IdeaFest 2013 at the Big Data PechaKucha event organised by the Department of Computer Science
  • February: Gave a talk about victoriaweather.ca to an informal group in a SEOS Fireside Chat.

• 2012

  • November:
    • Presented victoriaweather.ca to Ocean Networks Canada.
    • Hosted children from CAGIS (Canadian Association of Girls in Science) at the lab for a fun-filled (I hope) hour of demonstrations on weather and climate
  • October: Presented victoriaweather.ca to the UVic Geography Department.
  • August: Presented the Vancouver Island School-Based Weather Station Network at the International Conference on Urban Climatology (ICUC8) in Dublin, Ireland.
  • May: Attended the "How To Talk About Science: Communicating with Media, General Public and K-12" conference.
  • March: Attended with Dr Weaver at Glenlyon Norfolk School to give presentation on ocean acidification (Victoria).
  • February: Attended AAAS 2012 in Vancouver.

• 2011

• June: June 2011: Presented weather station network to teachers/educators at CMOS (Victoria).

• Pre-2011

• Many, practically innumerable, presentations to kids, teachers and parents that I neglected to keep a record of...

... and Outreach

Since 2003 I have given many presentations to school children, parents, teachers and the public in a variety of settings. In 2003 and again in 2012 I participated in UVic Science Faculty Open Houses where the public was invited to visit UVic to see what kinds of research and teaching activities take place on the UVic campus. The talks and demonstrations usually last about an hour and include many demonstrations and small experiments to illustrate facts about weather and climate. Sometimes I travel to schools and at other times I participate with others at our lab here at UVic when school children visit us on field trips. I generally build the apparatuses that I use for these demonstrations myself. One example is a our simple "tornado machine" that demonstrates a vortex in a mostly-closed chamber that stands 1.5 metres tall. Another is the Kelvin Water Drop machine that demonstrates a way that electric charges can be separated simply using flowing water and a positive feedback. A video of that device is linked below.