In the spring of 2021, Lanzhou experienced the strongest sand and dust weather in the past 10 years. It is a natural disaster in the eyes of ordinary people, but in the view of Professor Li Yan from the College of Atmospheric Sciences, this provides a new case for his own 'Weather Analysis' classroom teaching.

       She immediately changed the lesson preparation plan, found a clear weather map, added the formation process and principles of sand and dust weather to the course. In class, she analyzed the causes of the dust weather and what knowledge coincide in the textbook, and what new characteristics it has. 'Climate is changing, so we can't always use the old examples. The weather phenomena experienced by the students will give students a sense of substitution, and the effect of the class will be particularly good.'

       'Observe astronomy, observe changes in time. Be appropriate to the times which is not harmful to the people.' Through observations and predictions, to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, to benefit the people, which summed up the daily and pursuit of atmospheric people. Standing on the three-foot podium for ten years, Li Yan increasingly believes that teaching is a serious matter that may affect students' lives. She also inherited the teachings of her teacher, immersed in the ocean of atmospheric sciences, breathed with the atmosphere, interacted with the climate, and passed on what she had learned to the students, demonstrating thousands of atmospheres.

       Li Yan's main research directions are extreme weather and climate, blocking high pressure dynamics, air-sea interaction, etc., and she has research more than ten years in these fields.

       But when she first entered university, she was just an ordinary classmate who was confused about atmospheric science. 'When I was choosing university for the college entrance examination, I came to Lanzhou by chance and studied atmospheric science.' Li Yan said with a smile.

       And what made her really interested in atmospheric sciences were the several college teachers who taught her, “like Teacher Wang Shigong, Teacher Huang Jianping, Teacher Tian Wenshou, etc.. They have very high demands on themselves, and they are very serious in class every time. Everyone will arrive in the classroom early and give a lesson that students still want more until the bell rings.'

       The delicate connection between people started in just 45 minutes. The teachers were full of infinite enthusiasm for the subject, and they had a strong sense of identity and pride. This touched Li Yan a lot. Perhaps it is the inheritance of the teacher's morality. After Li Yan became a college teacher, she often recalled the education she received at that time. From Nanyang, Henan all the way to the west, she received professional academic training during her long academic career, and finally chose to root in this land. She hopes to pass on the spirit of the predecessors.

       Li Yan has taught the course of 'Weather Analysis' for undergraduates for a long time. Because the course of 'Weather Analysis' is very practical and the weather forecast is closely related to people's lives, Li Yan will not always use the same cases in every class. She constantly updates her lesson plans, and bring important weather events into the classroom.

       'The weather is changing, and the students are changing.' She has been teaching for more than ten years, and she has deep understanding about that.

       Li Yan said, 'For example, when you talk about the cold wave, if you talk about the 'Eight Seven cold wave', the students don’t know it because it happened too long ago. But if you talk about 2008 and 2016 cold wave, the southern students saw heavy snow, and the wires in front of the door were icy and the wires were broken, which is something that everyone experienced. You can truly feel that the knowledge in the textbook is a case in life, and the enthusiasm of the students can be naturally raised.'

       She has become accustomed to changing the PPT every time for the same course that she has taught for ten years: 'Sufficient lesson preparation gives me confidence to be on the stage.'

       She felt that for students, every word the teacher said in class could have a significant impact. If you make a mistake, the teacher will still have time to make corrections in the future, but for students, they may never have the opportunity to make corrections again. 'Therefore, the content brought into the classroom must be authoritative and correct.'

       During the epidemic in early 2020, Li Yan also took online classes, but she felt that the effect was not as good as the online and offline hybrid method. “It is impossible to assess the student’s learning status through the screen.” When the student returned to school, she reiterated all the important content that she had said online in one to two weeks.

       Just like its name, atmospheric science is a subject with a wide range of research objects. It can study locally or globally; it can study under the soil or extend to outer space. 'For example, many meteorological disasters are closely related to global warming, because climate warming makes the global climate system more fragile, and the weather becomes more abnormal. This is what we need to study in this discipline.'

       Just as teachers led her into the door of atmospheric science, now she has to build a bridge and pave a path to lead students into this field.

       The classic synoptic theory involves a large number of weather cases. For example, although the classic cold wave theory proposed in the last century is still applicable, it is inevitably “outdated” to use the previous weather examples. Moreover, due to global climate change and other reasons, global warming presents a polar amplification effect, which makes the characteristics of the weather process also change. Therefore, Li Yan will accumulate typical recent weather cases to replace the old ones, so that students can learn more about the new content, know what it is, and know why.

       In 2017, Lanzhou University Atmospheric Science was selected into the list of first-class discipline construction. Li Yan and her colleagues have been thinking about how to highlight the characteristics of first-class construction disciplines. In 2020, Li Yan and her colleagues decided to open a bilingual course to improve students' comprehensive professional ability.

       Li Yan clearly knows that conducting bilingual courses can play a very big role. Language is a stepping stone, which is very helpful to help students broaden their academic career, grasp the forefront of disciplines and enhance their international exchange ability.

       To do bilingual courses is not just a simple translation of Chinese content into English, but also to keep up with the international frontiers and base on the reality of our country. Li Yan said: 'Students were uncomfortable and afraid of bilingual courses at the beginning. As the courses progress, they gradually adapted to the bilingual teaching mode after 2-3 weeks.'

       As a background, bilingualism mainly encourages students to express in English and read English literature. She tried the international mainstream problem-based and case-based methods, which is to integrate problem and case teaching into modular teaching. The advantage is that it not only ensures the cutting-edge and advanced nature of the teaching content, but also fully incorporates the essence of domestic classic textbooks; at the same time, it focuses on training students’ problem-solving skills, making the course 'Weather Analysis' and the actual weather business in my country combine better.

       In order to further understand the actual effects of bilingual teaching, they conducted a special questionnaire survey. Through the questionnaire feedback, although some problems still existed, the expected bilingual teaching goal was basically completed. A classmate said to her: 'Thanks to the teacher for this course, I understood all the professional vocabulary during the graduate interview!'

       In her free time, Li Yan likes to calm down and slowly read some classic treatises in the humanities and natural sciences. After understanding the economics concept of 'subdivided consumer groups', she felt that it could be used in her teaching. According to the future development direction of the students, she divided the students into different groups for further study. At that time, a relatively fixed future career goal has been formed, and people will be more interested in subdividing groups according to different needs.'

       'Undergraduate graduates who directly participate in work are business-oriented groups. Students in this group can exercise their drawing, analysis and weather forecasting skills; graduate students in the plan are research-oriented groups, which guide this group of students to use weather analysis knowledge to discover and solve frontier scientific issues related to weather science.' Li Yan introduced.

       With the development of atmospheric sciences, new theories and new results continue to emerge, many knowledge and concepts have been greatly developed. 'For example, the concept of fronts in synoptics from discontinuities to transition zones has gone through decades, and some people have proposed that there is a front of gravity flow, which is not reflected in many textbooks.' Li Yan said, 'The English word of '研究' is research, which means to keep searching, searching and searching again. This takes time and requires concentration.'

       It is precisely by recognizing the close connection between scientific research and teaching that Li Yan was able to bring the cutting-edge theories of weather science into the classroom and lay a solid foundation for students' further scientific research. For students, Li Yan felt that from the perspective of a teacher, she was willing to respond to all their expectations in learning and scientific research.

       For undergraduates, organizing innovation and entrepreneurship training is a very good opportunity. Li Yan has been serving as the instructor of college students’ innovation and entrepreneurship projects all year round. She basically “will not refuse” students who come to her. She will guide undergraduates to do innovation and entrepreneurship projects in accordance with the requirements of instructing graduate students, and hope that students can follow their interests to find and solve scientific problems, present the process and conclusions of solving scientific problems, and write a thesis to realize the transformation of identity from learner to researcher. 'A good project can truly achieve the situation of teaching and learning.'

       Students sometimes 'emo' late at night, and she sees it in her eyes: 'Scientific research is not a particularly easy task. You have to try in doubt and persevere in the attempt. Maybe the end result is not satisfactory.'

       And this always good-tempered teacher will have some helplessness. Some students are very active in the process of applying for the project. They continue to discuss with her on WeChat to determine various details, but when the project is implemented, the student disappears. She is also very opposed to this utilitarian attitude: 'A good scientific researcher should first be a human being and second be doing things. Some things are more important than credits. If you do scientific research with a quick and utilitarian attitude, nothing can be achieved; even if something is made by luck, it will not stand the test of time.'

       Mr. Tao Xingzhi once said, “If you want students to be eager to learn, you must be eager to learn. Only a gentleman who is insatiable can teach students who are insatiable.' Li Yan deeply agrees, so she never relaxes her research work. The Guanyun Building at night is brightly lit. If you want to continue exploring on the path of atmospheric science, you must immerse yourself in a calm ocean, think carefully, and slowly experience it. The thing that accompanies her is the sun rising and the sunset.