Abstract:

Currently, it is crucial for students to acquire computational thinking and develop programming skills, not only at the High School level but also at the University level. As much of the climate research is programming-based, this topic could be an effective tool to work on these skills with students.

The study of climate sciences is not given much attention in Spain's secondary education system. Their study is addressed as a cross-disciplinary topic in different subjects, but without giving it significant weight in the academic curriculum and being relegated in many cases to superficial treatments of the information. This topic has the potential to be beneficial in involving students in technological aspects, as well as being a tool to promote environmental awareness among students. On the other hand, at the university level, meteorology is a relevant topic in many careers, such as Environmental Sciences or Aerospace Engineering. However, its practical application often requires the use of skills (programming) that many students do not master.

The present work aims to link two main cross-cutting topics in education, climate, and programming by utilizing the benefits of data science notebooks.

Data science notebooks are a form of interactive computing that allows students to execute code intuitively and to combine code with text and images. The format of computing with these tools allows the introduction of programming in students at different educational levels. This work revises the different options and specifications in data science notebooks analyzing the advantages and disadvantages in educational purposes. Moreover, several didactic application proposals are suggested, allowing the exploration of the potential of climate studies in the development of programming skills at different educational levels.

Keywords:

STEM, Data Science Notebooks, climate.