Mr. Vavrek received his B.A. degree in 1971 from California State University at Long Beach in geography and his M.S. degree in 1975 from Indiana State University in earth science, specializing in remote sensing and meteorology. For nearly thirty years he has taught middle school science for the School City of Hammond in Indiana. He has been involved in science fairs, Science Olympiad, expanded science studies, Indiana Meteorological Mesonet Program, Indiana Student Weather Network and Atmospheric Science Education for Teachers at Purdue University. Mr. Vavrek has received numerous local mini-grants for establishing and maintaining a student weather station at school, National Science Foundation summer program grant and a Lilly Endowment Teacher Creativity Fellowship Program grant for enhancing atmospheric science education. His professional involvement includes past and present participation in the American Meteorological Society (BSPMOE-Board), Hoosier Association of Science Teachers, Indiana Earth Science Teachers Association Regional Representative, National Lightning Safety Institute Board, Lightning Safety Group, National Earth Science Teachers Association, National Weather Association, and Phi Delta Kappa. Other atmospheric cience education involvement includes state, national, and international presentations on meteorology, over thirty informal papers on meteorological topics, public/commercial radio, television, cable television, magazines, and newspaper contributions, Franklin Institute's national traveling exhibit "Powers of Nature, American Red Cross "Masters of Disasters' contributor and reviewer, and has reviewed NOAA-National Weather Service Technical Memoes. His primary focus is to improve atmospheric science education and weather safety by assisting students and teachers by acting as a resource. This is accomplished by keeping the most current weather education resource listing available, by identifying books, weather instruments, web sites, video, organizations and societies, safety, and by writing informal atmospheric science education papers not usually covered in textbooks or supplemental teaching materials.