Storm Evader Summary

The article “Storm Evader: Using an IPad to teach kids about Meteorology and Technology” by Amy McGovern, Andrea Balfour, Marissa Beene, and David Harrison found on the American Meteorology Society website in volume 96, issue 3 published March 2015, is about the advancements of technology in education and specifically in the area of Meteorology. The article begins by discussing the shortage of workers in science, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Also, that it is important that children are exposed to and learning STEM skills with the hope of having more STEM majors in the future. The goal was to attack this problem through video games. Even though video games are viewed as a form of entertainment, they are being used more and more in education. Video games

Through this initial test they found that the older children wanted even more airports, but the younger children had trouble identifying the destination airports. So, to address the children’s needs Storm Evaders added a feature in which the destination airports animate when touched. Storm Evaders was then demonstrated at several large public events. Throughout these events Storm Evaders got very good feedback, children stating that Storm Evaders was really cool and fun. Lastly, they conducted a survey with children. This survey asked the participants about their experience with the iPad, and if they had learned anything from the game. The survey concluded that most of the participants learned what the different colors of the radars meant. Through all the testing and feedback Storm Evaders plans to add a few features. These features focus on turbulence, and the player will now be scored based on passenger comfort level. The player can control this by avoiding turbulence by being provided turbulence forecasts. With the success of Storm Evaders there are new weather related iPad games in