From: Haydee Salmun <wcsalmun@geo.hunter.cuny.edu>

To: students

Subject: Re: Weather and Climate...

Dear XXXXXX,

I understand that many, if not most, of you are not science majors, and

that this course may therefore seem more difficult than need be. I cover all

concepts, physical concepts, in some detail in class. In particular, I

try to connect the physical processes that occur in the atmosphere and

oceans to your everyday experience. Examples: when you perspire after some

activity, the sweat evaporates from your skin - this is liquid water changes

phase to water vapor through an evaporating surface (your skin) and it is the

same process we study for the atmosphere - and you have first hand experience

of this! It is my hope that with analogies as this one, we can bypass the

technicalities (and math!!) that a more rigorous course on weather and climate

would require. But I need to stress that this is a science course and it requires

your attention as such.

I appreciate, and hope, that you are reading this, and communicating with me early

rather than later in the term. In my experience (more than four years teaching

this course now), those students that come to lectures prepared to follow them, ask

questions when need to and review the notes before going to their labs, do well in

this course as they would do in any course using this approach. A hint: having a

printed copy of the notes (available on the course website) when attending lectures

and adding your own notes to that is the best way to follow lectures.

I will repeat here what I ALWAYS say in class: your best friend in the

course is the textbook. This book is an excellent choice that my colleague Prof.

Frei made, in my opinion. It is well written (English major should appreciate

that) and it clearly describes processes without the burden of technical language

and math. It also relates most concepts to things that should be familiar to

the students just from what they have observed:

* cities are hotter,

* warm air rises,

* the higher you go in the atmosphere the lower the temperature (that's why you

get cold in planes) and the lower the air pressure (that's why planes need to

be 'pressurized'),

* oceans stay warmer longer than the air around them (that's why you may still be

able to swim in the ocean comfortably at the end of September in the Northern

Hemisphere, after the summer days are well gone and the air may be quite cold),

* and more ...

I have also said (and repeat all the time) that 'everything relates to everything

else' in this course and I try constantly to ‘connect’, as it were, to whatever

was said earlier on in the lectures. In other words: we are almost always looking

at the same things, only learning a little bit more everyday. So, please READ THE

BOOK. There is no substitute to following a class and reading the book.

Notes, mine or Prof. Frei's, can only serve as a guide, they tell you about the material

we have covered and what we emphasized (we may emphasize different

aspects of the same concept at times), but they can't 'tell you the story', as

the book can. The best notes are those you take yourself, because you only know

what you meant by some short-hand comment or subheading.

Both Prof. Frei and I, follow the textbook, but we are different people

and may have different ways of saying things. That you look at his notes can

only help you. But I am responsible for your exam, if you are in my lectures,

so please do also look at my notes from class, from the web page or ask others

in class (when you miss lectures) if I have made any comment about what to focus

on each chapter, which I do regularly. The book has a very good study guide: the

review questions at the end of each chapter as well as a website for an interactive

study guide directly from the publisher. I have listed the review questions

that are pertinent to most of the material I use in lectures, and this I update

regularly.

In other words: I strive to tell students what I expect people to study, focus on,

be able to answer, or/and ask questions about, if need be. If you did not

manage to answer those questions you should make the time to ask the Instructors

from the lab, or ask me about them. I have office hours, or you could try to

make an appointment if you cannot come to my hours.

Students usually ask: 'Should I memorize the definitions at the end of each

chapter.' My answer is: “absolutely not!!” But then, that is easy for me to say.

I rather have you understand a concept and explain it to me in your own words

(nothing replaces that as 'knowledge'!!). The exam will not consist of questions

that will be answered by memorizing definitions, may be a few questions can be

answered that way but that is not all of the exam. Therefore, some memorizing may

help you along but all memorizing will not be a great help here, rather a waste

of your time in my opinion. I repeat, however, that you know better how you learn,

so I cannot advice you on that, only express my opinion.

Students also ask: 'Will there be math on the midterm.' Exams are multiple-choice

type, I may ask a question that requires you to calculate something VERY simple,

it will not be anything that I have not covered in class or that the book does not

cover in detail. This book is NOT a math-oriented, all that is asked of you

is simple algebra, middle-school, or less, level of algebra. I can tell

you that the exam will require that you understand and have studied the basic concepts

we learn in the course. Examples:

* where do we find the lowest temperatures in the atmosphere?,

* which elements are common to weather and climate?

* where do we find the largest concentration of ozone? why do we care about ozone?

* what are greenhouse gases? what do they do to the atmosphere?,

* what is temperature?

* how do we measure heat?,

* etc.

All of these are in the book and are discussed in the lectures.

I hope this is of some help and that you have a productive semester.

Haydee Salmun

Associate Professor

Hunter College of CUNY