News - NASA Langley Research Center
Virginia Teacher Turns Cooper Cougars into GLOBE Kids
Students at Cooper Elementary Magnet School in Hampton, Va., are on their way to collecting and sharing science data with other kids around the world with The Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program.
Last fall at the Virginia Association of Science Teachers Conference, Shirley Sypolt, a teacher at Cooper Elementary, discovered one of GLOBE's free educational resources – a series of children's storybooks that introduce Earth system science concepts to elementary students.
"I thought the books were nice, colorful and had good science content. While I was sitting there listening to the presentation, I was writing notes on how I would use them in my school," explained Sypolt.
Giving the presentation on GLOBE's storybooks was Jessica Taylor, a GLOBE trainer at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. NASA is a partner of GLOBE, which is a worldwide hands-on science and education program.
The storybooks cover science topics that correlate to National Science Education Standards, National Geography Standards, and the Principles and Standards for School Mathematics for kindergarten through fifth grade. The story plots range from studying soil to studying clouds, and teachers are encouraged to read the story with their students and complete the science activities suggested in the books, which require no special instrumentation.
"Literacy and science skills complement each other. For example, it's important to teach students about the idea of cause and effect in terms of reading comprehension. In science, we are also looking at cause and effect, just in a different context. In both areas, these storybooks inspire inquiry and investigation," explains Taylor.
Sypolt saw the same value in the books and arranged to have a class set made available for each grade level at her school. The books and teacher supplies were funded through a Hampton Education Foundation grant through Hampton City Schools that Sypolt received. In the spring, the storybooks were officially implemented at Cooper Elementary, with an elementary GLOBE book being read at each grade level. The result, according to Sypolt, was a great success.
"We would like our school to become a GLOBE school, and this was a great introduction. The teachers did an amazing job getting active with it and the students loved it," said Sypolt.
Cooper Elementary Magnet School teachers went beyond the storybooks to also require each grade level to complete a STEM project. Kindergarteners and first graders, after reading about bird migration, designed and built bird feeders.
"These students were told to watch for hummingbirds over the summer, and when they return in the fall we will talk about their observations," explained Sypolt.
After the second graders read their storybook about water monitoring, they wanted to study a tributary of Tide Mill Creek, which runs beside their school.
"We took the kids out to explore the creek, and their project was to design and build water collecting containers. They used all kinds of different plastic bottles, including milk containers, and 2-liters. The project showed the students not just how to study water, but how to collect that water safely," explained Sypolt.
Other projects included creating a 3-D mural representing the different types of clouds, designing and constructing scoops for collecting and studying soil, and even staging a play to act out various processes on Earth.
"Eventually I would love to see them collect more data," said Taylor. "These storybooks can be powerful because they ease teachers and students into the content. Once they are comfortable with the books, they might want to start collecting data following the GLOBE protocols."
Taylor and Sypolt share a common vision. Cooper Elementary has already purchased instruments through a grant to put a weather station in place for weather and cloud monitoring. Sypolt also hopes to have teachers trained in the soil and water protocols so that future students can begin collecting observations and contributing their research to GLOBE's international data repository.
"Our ultimate goal is to get our students collecting real science data and entering their data on computers. They are growing up with technology, and they are naturals at it. On the computer, they will be able to look at data coming in from kids all over the world," said Sypolt.
The GLOBE storybooks are freely available online in multiple languages, and they are available for print or for digital slideshows. For information on the storybooks and related lessons and activities, visit: http://www.globe.gov/.
Jennifer LaPan
NASA Langley Research Center
News origin: NASA Langley Research Center