Stars and STEM Stories
What Do We See When We Look At Clouds?
The GLOBE Program was first implemented in Argentina in 1995. This Star Story details an activity that took place jointly with the Embassy of the United States in Buenos Aires (Argentina) and involved GLOBE schools and schools that still are not part of The GLOBE Program. The objective was to encourage the use of the GLOBE Observer App, publicize GLOBE to those who don't know it yet and make reference to different programs from the United States Embassy that involve young people in Argentina.
During the development of the event, a live Instagram video was organized by GLOBE Master Trainers Marta Kingsland and Ana Prieto explaining the activity and how to participate, along with the relevance of observing clouds and conducting future research works.
Tow contests were organized: best video tutorial and cloud observations. These were developed in two stages:
In the first stage, the educational community was called to make a video allowing students to show the use of the app and precisely what is related to cloud observation. Kingsland and Prieto received many videos, and to decide the best winner, they summoned scientists Marilé Colón Robles and Rosalba Giarratano to be judges. "We are incredibly grateful. We know that judging has not been easy because all the videos were very well done." The winner was a student from a school in Buenos Aires who received a prize from the US Embassy.
The second stage consisted of the students' observations and data sent using the GLOBE Observer App. As a tutorial, they had the winning video at their fingertips! In this stage, there were two winners from two different Argentine provinces and their respective schools. Both received awards given by the US Embassy.
The activity created a lot of data that was recorded on the GLOBE.gov website. The awards given are being used in the winning schools to continue implementing the GLOBE Program.
Complementing the activities and contests, Kingsland and Prieto wish to thank scientist Rosalba Giarratano who gave a talk about the importance of doing cloud research.
The contest served to learn more about the operation of the GLOBE Observer App and that many children and adolescents become enthusiastic about observing, classifying clouds and sending data.
Images courtesy Marta Kingsland, Argentina Country Coordinator.