The North Florida Chapter of the AMS is actively involved in a wide array of outreach programs, including participation in local area schools through biweekly presentations on the weather, judging and providing tutoring for Science Fair and Science Olympiad projects at competitions across North Florida, South Georgia, and Southeast Alabama reaching out to the community through periodic clothing and food drives benefiting local charities, as well as professional outreach to our members and the local meteorological community in general. Most recently, the chapter has worked to make Florida State University the first National Weather Service certified StormReady campus in the state of Florida. The chapter is also actively involved in WeatherFest, an annual community weather day co-sponsered by the Tallahassee Weather Forecasting Office of the National Weather Service and Florida State University Department of Meteorology.
School Programs
The North Florida Chapter has developed and maintains an active school participation program through its Science and Education Committee. This program is highlighted by presentations to local area schools, particularly at the elementary and high school levels and science fair participation.
Typically in our presentations, three to six chapter members give a 45 minute presentation on the weather, tailored to a specific age level, and follow that up with a brief question and answer session. Supporting materials are drawn from local and national agencies, such as the Tallahassee National Weather Service, the National Hurricane Center, and the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Successful presentations in the past have been made to groups at Fairview Middle, Riley Elementary, and Godby High in Tallahassee, among others.
If you have any questions or comments regarding our school programs, would like further information, or are interested in having us present to your group, please feel free to contact our Science Outreach Coordinator at northflams@gmail.com.
Science Fairs
The North Florida Chapter of the AMS is actively involved in participating in local-area Science Fair and Science Olympiad competitions, providing support in the form of judges, tutoring, and sponsorship for these competitions. To date, the chapter has helped to judge the 2004 Riley Elementary Science Fair, 2006 , 2007, 2008, 2009, & 2012 Capital Regional Science Fairs, 2007 & 2012 Hartsfield Elementary Science Fair, Killearn Lakes Elementary School Science Fairs, Deerlake Elementary School Science Fairs, and Raa Middle School Science Fairs among others; as well as helped to tutor for the Fairview Middle Science Olympiad. There is always room for further programs on the docket in the future. The experiences gained from these presentations has proven very worthwhile and meaningful to our members, but even more so to the children involved.
With the next Science Fair and Science Olympiad schedule always fast approaching, the time is near to begin thinking about sponsorship, tutors, and judges for these competitions. If you or your school is interested in learning more about our related programs or in acquiring judges, tutors, or sponsorship for your Science Fair or Science Olympiad competition, please contact the Science Outreach Coordinator at northflams@gmail.com.
Community Outreach
The North Florida Chapter takes pride in providing outreach to the Tallahassee community in general. To that end, we have participated in a number of clothing and food drives in the region over the past couple years and have actively been developing school programs designed to benefit the educational community at-large.
During the summer of 2006, the chapter was invited to help communicate hurricane preparedness information to the community, through four local “town meetings” developed by the Tallahassee CBS affiliate, WCTV 6. Over the 2004 holiday season, the chapter held a clothing/food drive to support ECHO Outreach Ministries, the beneficiary of two separate drives last year that, in total, netted over 50 canned food items and nearly 300 clothing items for donation to the local community. The year’s drive netted over 8 bins of material, goods that were donated to ECHO in early December 2004. The chapter has continued to donate to ECHO, as well as other organizations. One such drive includes donations of printer ink and toner to local a Tallahassee school for increased science funding.
Over the last few years we’ve also begun working with FSU Earth Day to educate the community about different meteorological initatives and what our department and chapter does.
For more information on our outreach programs, please contact us by e-mailing the chapter’s Science Outreach Coordinator at northflams@gmail.com. The North Florida Chapter of the AMS — where community comes first.
Professional Outreach
The chapter is dedicated to helping the community at large. We continue to look for professional partnerships to build outreach to the professional community in Tallahassee and beyond. Please contact us at northflams@gmail.com if you would like more information.
Previous Outreach Events & Current Partnerships
(with further updates, more information on previous outreach events will be available)
Service
As we continue to assist the community with outreach, we also understand that there is environmental service to be done as well. This helps members get to know each other better and give back to the community as well. Throughout the past few years we’ve worked with Keep Tallahassee – Leon County Beautiful (KTLCB) initatives with Coastal Clean-ups and the Super-Clean Sweep Environmental Cleanup that occurred in Tallahassee this year. We have made it an initiative to continue to keep clean Blountstown U.S. Hwy 20.
In future years we hope to continue to work with KTLCB, and branch out to work with DaMayan Garden Projects, which create community gardens in areas of need around Tallahassee. We also hope to work with Turkey Hill Farm, to learn about sustainable agriculture in our community.
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