In
the past decade, the NASA-NSF-sponsored Global Learning and
Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) program has
engaged over a million elementary and secondary students from
109 countries in the process of doing scientific inquiry.
GLOBE students and teachers have been trained to collect
high-quality scientific measurements related to water, soil,
atmosphere, phenology and land cover, and to share their data
with other students and scientists around the world.
In
2006, the GLOBE program began to shift its emphasis from student
data collection to student data use, analysis, and application to
local and regional environmental problems. NSF funded four
new GLOBE projects that will allow students, educators and
community groups to work together with scientists engaged in
large, integrated earth system science research projects. The
four projects concern the carbon cycle and climate change (PI:
Scott Ollinger, University of New Hampshire, with the North
American Carbon Cycle program), seasons and biomes (PI: Elena
Sparrow, University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the International
Arctic Research Center), watershed dynamics (PI: Daniel Edelson,
Northwestern University, with the Consortium of Universities for
Advancement of Hydrologic Science), and from local to extreme
environments (PI: Elizabeth Goehring, Pennsylvania State
University, with the RIDGE 2000 and InterRIDGE programs). As
one of the first activities for these new projects, the GLOBE
program office at UCAR is facilitating the first “Pole to Pole”
video conference and Web chat linking International Polar Year
scientists with students in the Arctic and Antarctica.
