Geographic education is more effective when students actively participate by developing hypotheses, designing experiments, collecting and analyzing data, and discussing results. We describe an innovative pedagogical approach, in which students learn physical geography concepts by analyzing environmental data collected in contrasting environments in Santa Barbara County, CA. The major components of this approach include a local network of micrometeorology stations (the Innovative Datasets for Environmental Analysis by Students (IDEAS network)), student field trips, a web portal (www.geog.ucsb.edu/ideas) and analysis tools which support student education and research. Examples of student work, graded rubrics, course evaluation scores, and instructor observations demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach. The most serious limitation is the high cost of equipment given the low number of students initially involved, a weakness that can be addressed through expanded use of this facility by other physical geography classes and institutions, facilitated by the IDEAS website, and increased enrollment in existing classes.