News - Africa
If You Build It (to be fun and engaging), They Will Come (to NARM)
The 2024 North American Regional Meeting (NARM) was held virtually over three days, 15–17 October, for three hours each day. Amy Chen, the GLOBE program officer at NASA, and Rebecca Lewis and Becky Boger from the new GLOBE Implementation Office opened the meeting with welcomes, highlights, and updates on GLOBE activities.
Ninety-eight people registered for the free meeting. Over the three days, 91 of those people attended, making it the most well-attended virtual NARM in the GLOBE Program’s history. Forty-eight people attended all three days.
Meeting participants attended from across the United States and Canada.
Day 1: Skill-Building
Each day had a slightly different focus. Day 1 was skill-building learning about GLOBE’s various website features and NASA connections. Three sessions of 30-minute workshops were offered. NARM participants were able to choose which workshop they wanted to attend during each session, with at least six workshops offered per session. Each workshop was interactive; leaders provided content and participants practiced using the features being demonstrated, asked questions, and provided feedback.
Day 2: Lightning Talks & Affinity Groups
The second day featured seven lightning talks from GLOBE partners that highlighted different approaches to using GLOBE in their communities. The lightning talk presenters answered questions posted in the meeting chat box while their videos played. After the lightning talks, participants were randomly assigned to breakout rooms to discuss which presentations resonated with them and how they might adapt their programming moving forward based on what they learned.
Day 2 also included time for participants to meet in affinity groups to talk about how they can work together to implement GLOBE with different audiences and in different settings. The affinity group topics included citizen science, curriculum development, Elementary GLOBE, education research, and in-person professional development.
Day 3: Professional Learning
The final day focused on professional learning in the ever-important areas of grant writing and marketing; these two sessions were led by leadership from the Community Engagement and Support team of the GLOBE Implementation Office. Rebecca Lewis, director of Community Engagement and Support, led the grant writing workshop. She focused on types and sources of funding and provided tips on writing grant proposals. Participants went into their affinity group breakout rooms to talk about finding grants to support their common goals.
Leana Nordstrom, communications lead, led the marketing workshop in which she discussed knowing your audience, identifying your purpose, and using different methods to reach your audience(s). She also provided some GLOBE-specific “dos and don’ts” and tools, such as templates and logos.
Participants also heard from Dixon Butler about grants available through the nonprofit organization Youth Learning As Citizen Environmental Scientists (YLACES) and Kevin O’Connor, GLOBE Canada Country Coordinator, about GLOBE activities in Canada.
Engaged and Connected
Anyone who has attended a long virtual meeting knows that it can be easy to lose focus or multi-task. The planning committee for the 2024 NARM were thoughtful about incorporating ways to keep participants engaged and connected. One method used was frequent breakout sessions; participants were in breakout rooms a minimum of two times during each three-hour day.
Another technique to keep everyone’s attention was gamifying GLOBE; participants were able to win raffle tickets by completing tasks or for participating in games like GLOBE Acronym Bingo and the U.S. Partner Yearbook Scavenger Hunt. There were also brief networking sessions prior to the start of Days 2 and 3 plus several uses of Padlet.
Thank Yous
Many thanks to all the presenters and breakout room facilitators, and
a special thank you to the GLOBE partners who joined the NARM
committee to co-plan and facilitate the virtual meeting with the U.S.
Country Coordination Office.
• Rosalba Giarratano, NASA
Langley
• Dorian Janney, NASA Goddard
• Tracy
Ostrom, UC Berkeley
• Cassie Soeffing, Institute for Global
Environmental Strategies (IGES)
• Amanda Syers, Grand Valley
State University
• Kevin O’Connor, GLOBE Canada Country
Coordinator
• GLOBE U.S. Coordination Office: Jen Bourgeault,
Haley Wicklein, Alicia Carlson, and Jodi Haney
Thank you as well to our NARM host—Leitzel Center at the University
of New Hampshire, the GLOBE Program sponsor—NASA, and the program’s
supporters—the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Department of
State.