After four years of achieving runner-up honor roll status, the ISU chapter of the American Meteorology Society has been declared the best student chapter of the 2006-07 school year by the national AMS.

Justin Gehrts, junior in meteorology and president of the ISU AMS chapter, said it was a big honor to receive this recognition, but it was no surprise.

“When I got the phone call, I was pretty happy,” Gehrts said. “But honestly I wasn’t surprised because I knew that a lot of people had put in a lot of hard work.”

The ISU AMS has been working over the last several years to become worthy of the title they received by participating in outreach programs and adding new features to their chapter every year.

“They are just very active; they are doing many things,” said William Gallus, professor in geological and atmospheric sciences. “I think that is what has really helped the chapter.”

One thing that sets the ISU chapter apart from other chapters is its academic chairman position. This is a new position for this year, filled by Kaj Johnson-O’Mara, senior in meteorology.

Elizabeth White, senior in meteorology and vice president of the ISU chapter of the AMS, said the academic chairman was a great tool for helping underclassmen in meteorology achieve better grades.

“The academic chair was put in charge of forming study groups for underclassmen in the meteorology major. The study sessions are all led by upperclassmen that have been through the classes and taken the tests,” White said. “They are put in charge of helping out the underclassmen survive the tough classes that are involved in being a meteorology major.”

Johnson-O’Mara has made an effort to improve grades in some of the challenging math and science classes that younger meteorology students must take.

“[He organizes] two tutorial sessions for the underclassmen who are taking lots of calculus and physics classes to try to help learning retention for the first-year and second-year meteorology students,” Gallus said.

The ISU AMS has also been very active in the community to raise awareness about the dangers of severe weather.

“We started a severe weather poster contest for elementary school kids in the Des Moines and Ames area last year,” White said. “We hope do it again this year and expand on it.”

White said the contest last year was a success. The poster contest winners received weather radios, IMAX tickets to “The Forces of Nature” and had their poster shown on local television stations.

White and Gehrts said Iowa State will continue to raise the bar for other AMS chapters.