Stars and STEM Stories
Stoneville Elementary School, Stoneville, NC, United States
In Stoneville, NC, there are a couple of teachers who are not only dedicated to GLOBE, but to each other as well. Bill and Joanne Knight are husband and wife teachers at Stoneville Elementary. Stoneville is a year-round school, so students have lots of opportunities to gather and report data, which has resulted in their being one of the highest data-reporting GLOBE schools! But on holidays and weekends when the students can't get to the school themselves, the husband and wife team move into action!
"Because we live only a short distance from the school... we do our best to get weekend readings," says Mr. Knight, who teaches fifth grade. "My first stop after church is the school grounds while Joanne goes on home to prepare lunch."
Ms. Knight teaches third grade, where they are enjoying their work observing and discussing cloud formations. And Mr. Knight's fifth-graders make the GLOBE precipitation and temperature readings each day after lunch. Often, the Knights will input their data in the evenings from their home computer.
The Stoneville students used the GLOBE protocols to monitor a small creek nearby their school. In the aftermath of the recent hurricanes and flooding caused by Hurricane Floyd that devastated much of eastern North Carolina, they watched the creek carefully for changes. But Stoneville is about 200 miles from the coast and, although they experienced some flooding and strong winds, the creek did not change dramatically. "Other than losing a day of school [as a precaution], and other than compassion for those who were affected, we've had no harmful effects from the flooding," says Mr. Knight.
"We enjoy this program and use the information in our teaching," says Mr. Knight. "Students especially enjoy looking at the various maps and graphics of our weather data."