SCOOP Tutorial Main Story
From SCOOP Wiki
Read through this short story. When you click on the links, you will find a series of web pages with more details about the story as well as instructions that lead you through the SCOOP tutorial.
My story started in 1999. That summer, I lived through one of the worst hurricanes to hit North Carolina, Hurricane Floyd. Over two million people were evacuated from their homes (one of the largest evacuations in U.S. history) and damages were estimated at over $6 billion. I will never forget the hurried rush I was in to get out of our house before the hurricane hit.
The year is now 2008 and I am a freshman at the University of Florida, taking a course called Introduction to Coastal Engineering. Hurricanes are a major topic and I thought this to be my chance to learn what really happened those many years ago. We were assigned a project to create educational materials to raise public awareness about any coastal process we chose. I was first in line for the topic on hurricanes. After class, I went home to brainstorm with my roommate. He is working on a degree in education and is always talking about learning styles and how people process information differently. This would fit perfectly in the part of the project that requires raising public awareness.
Next step, finding credible data about hurricane research and real-time forecasting. I started paging through my class notes on hurricanes and stumbled upon a website in the margin. I remember the professor discussing the website, but I couldn’t remember why. I went straight to the computer. I typed in the website scoop.sura.org and immediately found everything I was looking for. Documents, data, and science scenarios filled my computer screen; I couldn’t have asked for more. I clicked on the data tab, and two small boxes popped up. I could type in any hurricane I wanted and get information on it. I anxiously typed in Floyd. After seeing the track and remembering back, I lost my appetite. I needed to think about my project. I typed in hurricane Katrina, one the most widely known recent storms. I clicked on the data icon and ended up downloading an interesting looking file on storm surge, but I didn’t know how to open it. My friend of mine is a computer science major and I figured I’d call her instead of giving up.
It’s a new day, a new cup of coffee, and a new list of things to get done. I thought long and hard about those learning styles last night and knew I had to incorporate a more interactive approach. I found out I could download VMware and Grid Appliance which not only had more detailed examples on how I could do many of the things I tried previously, but it also had tools I could use to plot the data just like the ones used by SCOOP. While I was very excited about the prospects of hands-on material, maybe I should start with basic coastal definitons and deal with the technical side tomorrow. I stopped and topped of my mug with fresh coffee. I couldn’t wait to get started.
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