November 2020 U.S. Summary - Jennifer Bourgeault

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November 2020 U.S. Summary

The big announcement this month was that we made the difficult decision to cancel the 2021 Student Research Symposia. We have some other activities that we will working on instead, which will support the IVSS and SRS into the future! In other news, I attended a couple virtual multi-day meetings and had lots of resources cross my desk. Some of those are listed below. I look forward to 2021 and the close of 2020. It has been a rough year but kindness abounds and teachers are amazing in supporting students throughout this public health crisis – they inspire me each day. Peace to all of the GLOBE family!

Resources that crossed my desk:

Passing the Sniff Test: What Matters Most When Looking at Earth and Space Science Instructional Materials (recording available)
GLOBE at the American Geophysical Union Annual Meeting 1-17 December (spreadsheet)
The i-Tree My Tree app
US Air Quality Campaign Webinar Series
YLACES November Newsletter with grantee information
COVID-19 Remote Learning Emergency Fund for Educators | National Geographic Society
Recordings available: Teaching for Community—Spotlight Series - Community Works Institute (CWI)
NASA eClips Real World: The Carbon Cycle – Essential for Life on Earth…GLOBE Carbon Protocol featured!

Partner News

MULTI STEM, an NSF-funded project led by Metropolitan State University of Denver and involving the US GLOBE Office and multiple GLOBE Partners and teachers, closed out its funding with an Advisory Board meeting this month. The materials developed for the project can be found on the following websites: STEM Teaching Tools http://stemteachingtools.org/tools and the Multi STEM Website https://www.msudenver.edu/case/multistem/.
GLOBE Mission EARTH-West assisted the Santa Fe Indian School in organizing a 1 December 2020 science café with Marilé Colón Robles, NASA Langley, around use of GLOBE Observer. Students organized the event for other students!
Tennessee State University (Dr. David Padgett, GLOBE Partner) hosted GIS Day with online presentations.
Dr. Elizabeth Burakowski’s vernal window tracking project, which uses GLOBE protocols, was highlighted in the USDA Forest Service Citizen Science Newsletter. She is affiliated with the Leitzel Center Partnership.

US Regional GLOBE Student Research Symposia (SRS)

The video from the 2019 Southwest SRS, now posted on GLOBE YouTube, was shown at the NASA Science Activation annual meeting and is being shown at the NASA “Science Theatre” at the NASA’s AGU Virtual Exhibit Booth.
On 16 November 2020, a memo went out to the U.S. GLOBE Community about the cancelation of the 2021 SRS and what activities the team is planning.
Reminder about the other GLOBE SRS film: Northeast & Mid-Atlantic SRS experience film which debuted at the NSF STEM for All Multiplex 2020.

Communication

via MailChimp (to U.S. Partners and Teachers)

16 November 2020 – UPDATE: 2021 Student Research Symposia
12 November 2020 – TODAY! Data Literacy Tips for Teachers at GLOBE Watercooler

Via Weekly Watercooler (driven by COVID-19, for all U.S. Partners and Teachers, hosted on the Teacher Watercooler YouTube Playlist)

05 November 2020 – Focal Students – Janelle Johnson
12 November 2020 – Data Literacy – Christy Wall
19 November 2020 – GLOBE User Dashboard– Sara Mierzwiak

US Partner Forum Meeting (05 November 2020)

Agenda: Results of the polls given to GLOBE Partners during the US Partner Forum report-out at the North American Regional Meeting 2020 were discussed today.

Q1: What affinity group aligns with GLOBE work? Most involved with K-12, also some with pre-service teachers.

Q2: What affinity group are you most interested in joining/learning about? Most chose afterschool programs, science centers.

Discussion: Watercoolers and the partner listserv are great places to start building affinity groups. Need for champion(s) of the group, although this would possibly need funding for capacity building.

Q3: What is your open rate on newsletters? Almost all say opened.

Q4: How often would you like to receive newsletters? Almost all say quarterly.

Q5: Have you ever contributed an article to newsletters? Most said no, the rest had done repeat articles.

Q6: Would you like to contribute an article? Most say yes(!)

Discussion: Benefits of newsletters so far outweigh the effort going into them.

Q7: What factors contribute to attending NARM and being active? Many responses were that there was funding to attend/be active, and made the time to be engaged. Number two response that they are there to network/connect. A few said no funding, but see importance.

Q8: Areas of focus for 2021 for the US Partner Forum. Top picks: Support for GLOBE citsci programs; Compile and provide opportunities/issues for GLOBE implementation. Strong choices: Onboarding, affinity groups, purposeful collaboration.

Discussion: Use these results as a springboard for establishing 2021 USPF goals.

Other

Interested community members attended the GLOBE Book Group Meeting on 6 November 2020 to discuss the NOAA Theory of Change online resource.
A monthly meeting of the GLOBE Indigenous Collaboration Group took place on 6 November 2020. Discussion topics included afterschool programming and data sovereignty.
Check out the ESS GLOBE and Earth System Science (ESS) Collaborative Teams!
Virtual meetings I attended included the NASA SciAct Annual Meeting 9-13 November 2020 and the GLOBE Latin America & the Caribbean (LAC) Regional Meeting 18-20 November 2020.

Ongoing and Links