Stars and STEM Stories
GLOBE Peru Teams with Peace Corps to Expand GLOBE in the Region
Peace Corps has been active in promoting and supporting GLOBE since 1997 when Peace Corps Volunteers first served as GLOBE teachers in Kyrgyzstan and helped with the implementation of the program. GLOBE and Peace Corps make natural partners as GLOBE and the Peace Corps share common a commitment to promoting environmental education, youth development and empowerment, cultural exchange, and environmental consciousness.
This beneficial relationship is now developing in Peru, where the two organizations have joined hands. The areas of support and exchange include:
- assisting the GLOBE students of La Molina University to create a manual for how to build metrological stations;
- helping in the coordination the 2012 GLOBE teacher trainings;
- providing icebreakers and learning activities for the teacher trainings;
- building more metrological stations with their communities and schools;
- organizing a GLOBE At Night investigation; and
- supporting of grants like the U.S.AID Small Project Assistance Grant to assist with the national roll-out of the program.
Peace Corps Environment Volunteers Leslie Longabach, Reilly Murphy, Laura Fiesel, and Nicole Flores present their puppet show, "There is no place like home," at the GLOBE Teacher Training in Junín, Junín. All of the puppets were made from recycled material.
Diego Shoobridge, the Associate Program Country Director of the Peace Corps Environment program, stated that Peace Corps Peru learned of the many benefits of GLOBE through the Peace Corps Volunteers themselves many of whom were part of GLOBE in the United States. When asked about why it was important to support and promote GLOBE, he said, "GLOBE is a tool designed to facilitate access and information about our environment worldwide. Students are able to see clearly what is happening in other places and to learn from these experiences. With topics, such as deforestation and desertification, they can see satellite images that illustrate the reality of the situation of our environment; raising environmental consciousness is the first step leading to participation in conservation."
Heather Frankland, a Peace Corps Response Environment Volunteer placed in the Environmental Ministry of Peru to work with GLOBE, showing Peace Corps Peru´s commitment to the GLOBE/Peace Corps Collaboration added, " By using a hands-on approach, the students not only are able to practice science, but they learn the importance of protecting our environment and are able to develop their leadership skills. It is a dynamic and empowering approach to teaching science, and I am glad to be a part of such an excellent initiative."
Peace Corps Volunteers Kate Diaz, Sarabeth Brockley, and Peace Corps Response Volunteer, Heather Frankland, assist professors at the GLOBE Piura Pilot School, I.E. Micaela Bastidas, with the raising of Peruvian flag before the ceremony to announce the beginning of the GLOBE training.
But it´s not only volunteers from the Peace Corps Peru Environment program who are helping out. Jon Bibb, a Peace Corps Youth Development Volunteer in Los Aquijes, Ica stated that he "wanted to become part of GLOBE because I think that the opportunities that GLOBE provides for our alumnos to study the environment and to become part of worldwide scientific network are invaluable. Our school in particular (IE 22511 El Rosario) is currently making strides to become a "greener" school. We are starting programs of recycling and gardening. GLOBE affords the alumnos a chance to enhance their understanding of how these programs affect not only their school, but also the country of Peru and the entire world."
Peace Corps´ last two goals focus on cultural exchange: to help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the people served; to help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. GLOBE is a way to achieve these goals. The GLOBE/Peace Corps partnership in Peru is setting up sister school investigations between schools in Peru and GLOBE schools internationally. They are exploring a relationship with Coverdell World Wise School program, where U.S. educators and classrooms are put in touch and correspond with Peace Corps Volunteers in the field.
Jon Bibb works with one of his students from I.E. Rosario at the GLOBE Ica Teacher Training.
GLOBE's easy accessibility is one of the main selling-points for teachers in Peru. As noted by Peace Corps Volunteer, Jon Bibb, "GLOBE projects are designed to be low-cost and high-impact. The "Star Study" overnight project that our students participated in was completed with tools that, though sophisticated, can be printed out and copied on normal sheets of paper. Also, community participation is essential to GLOBE through shared work with local college students and scientists. This combination of affordable science and hand-in-hand community work is what Peace Corps is all about."
Jess Gilbert, a GLOBE alumni from Dutchess Academy of Environmental Studies at the Norrie Point Environmental Center in Staatsburgh, NY and a Peace Corps Environment Volunteer first in Ancash now Amazonas, discusses the importance of GLOBE, "The value in GLOBE is not only in the materials and protocols of the program itself, but rather in its viability in diverse regions, countries, and schools of wide-ranging economic levels.
Jess Gilbert teaches a land cover ice breaker at Colegio La Libertad in Huaraz, Ancash during the GLOBE Ancash Teacher Training.
As a lower income student from a region with low college attendance rates, my professor, Wayne Gilchrest and the GLOBE program provided me with a wider scope as to what the world had to offer, in a field that I was truly passionate about. My experience with GLOBE and student based research helped me identify my interest in natural sciences and biology, and led me to study biology and pursue it as a career. Eventually, I plan to pursue my PhD in conservation biology and sustainable development, and continue to support GLOBE and student based research as a student, teacher and scientist. "
What other future scientists and environmentalists are out there waiting to be awakened to the world of science and to learn in the laboratory that is our planet? What better way to connect us than to realize we share the same home and, together, must take responsibility to conserve it?