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Integrating teaching, research and service through Penn State Public Broadcasting Outreach: Department of Meteorology
	Penn State’s Department of Meteorology has made a long-time commitment to provide accurate, timely weather information to Pennsylvanians. For more than 35 years, Penn State Public Broadcasting has played an important role in fulfilling that goal.   The ongoing relationship between the department and WPSX-TV has supported the work of meteorology faculty interested in communicating weather information to the public. Department of Meteorology instructors Fred Gadomski, Lee Grenci and Paul Knight, the Pennsylvania State Climatologist, as well as Todd Miner, research assistant, work in the department’s Weather Communications Group to explore these public information issues. Since 1986, the group has prepared the daily weather page for The New York Times.   All four also serve as on-air meteorologists for the WPSX-TV Weather World program, a 15-minute weather magazine show broadcast each weeknight on WPSX, WVIA and WITF stations. WPSX-TV’s most-watched program, Weather World enjoys a loyal audience that tunes in regularly for their weather information. An estimated 120,000 viewers watch the program during storms and other weather events.   For the faculty who prepare and deliver the forecasts, both the Weather Communications Group and Weather World projects are laboratories designed to explore how to improve public access to weather information. For meteorology graduate students and undergraduates, the Penn State Public Broadcasting partnership offers opportunities to learn about weather communications and to practice their skills both on-camera and behind the scenes.   More than 75 communications majors and about 20 meteorology students have worked with WPSX weather programming, preparing features, researching stories and helping in the control room. Weather World also offers opportunities for graduate students to begin their careers in broadcasting while studying toward an advanced degree. Currently, three master’s degree candidates are part of the team of 11 meteorologists who broadcast their forecasts to the Pennsylvania audience. These students work alongside veteran weather forecasters, including two senior vice presidents of Accu-Weather Inc.: Dr. Joe Sobel and Elliot Abrams.   Outside the Weather World studio, the innovative Penn State course in television meteorology also maintains a connection to WPSX. In the 10 years that the course has been offered, about 150 meteorology students learned to become on-camera meteorologists through Penn State Public Broadcasting’s Training Facility for Meteorology Students.   Future plans include more opportunities to enhance departmental teaching, research and service through Penn State Public Broadcasting initiatives. In recent years, the department’s weather programming has already expanded to include morning weather updates by students and nightly updates by regular hosts, as well as radio weather broadcasting through WPSU-FM. Currently, the department and the station are developing ideas to further broaden the scope of Penn State weather programming and communications statewide.