STEM Professional/Scientists

Godfrey Burnside

Godfrey Burnside is a meteorologist whose daily weather broadcasts on local radio and television in Nassau, Bahamas have mde him a popular figure in the region. Burnside is Director of Meteorology in the Ministry of Environment in the Bahamas, as well as the Country Coordinator for GLOBE .

Burnside checks his weather models, instrumentation, radar data and satellite pictures daily as he prepares his regional weather forecasts: daily on local radio station Love97 FM, nightly on channel JCN14 and twice weekly on a popular morning television show called "Bahamas at Sunrise" on ZNS channel 13. 

Since introducing GLOBE in the Bahamas in 2005, Burnside has overseen the installation and implementation of weather stations throughout the "Family of Islands"-- the 700 islands and cays that, along with the 13 major islands, comprise the Bahamas. He says he sees the excitement and inquisitiveness of teachers and students as they set up their GLOBE weather stations that are equipped with instruments to take valid scientific measurements. According to Burnside, GLOBE students keep very accurate logs of their local weather.

"The local community has been positively impacted by The GLOBE Program" said Burnside, "and by the involvement of teachers, students and parents, who for years have only heard about the weather. Now they are involved in the hands-on functions of measuring temperature, rainfall and atmospheric pressure and identifying clouds. It is significant and exciting to teachers, students and parents, because in our tropical marine climate, there are so many different cloud formations, including expansive clouds of great vertical extent."

GLOBE students in the Bahamas have amassed a substantial database of weather information. "The challenge now is learning how to utilize the data." noted Burnside. Primary school students, in particular, are learning to employ the mathematical concepts they are mastering … addition, subtraction, division, finding averages and identifying extreme temperatures and rainfall distribution to understand and apply the data in learning more about their local environment.  They are also studying clouds as predictors of weather.

Burnside is working strategically with the Nature Conservancy to hold trainings to re-engage schools that no longer have GLOBE trained teachers due to school transfers. In addition he is expanding his efforts in order to involve Queens College, Nassau in GLOBE.

The GLOBE Program is pleased to have Godfrey Burnside as an advocate for GLOBE in the Bahamas. His professional accomplishments, his high profile as a radio and TV meteorologist and the enthusiasm with which he popularizes weather science throughout the islands, serves as a positive model for students who are eager to learn more about weather and climate.

(A sample of one of Godfrey Burnside's television broadcasts may be found here.)