News - United States of America
Going Global in West Virginia with GLOBE
Contributed by Josh Revels, U.S. GLOBE Partner at the Katherine Johnson NASA Independent Verification & Validation's Education Resource Center (IV&V ERC).
In Fall 2023, the GLOBE U.S. Coordination Office awarded Fairmont State University and the Katherine Johnson NASA Independent Verification & Validation's Education Resource Center (IV&V ERC) in Fairmont, West Virginia, a grant for an Atmosphere data protocol training to prepare GLOBE teachers to become mentors for GLOBE science fair projects both at the county and state level as well as during the GLOBE International Virtual Science Symposium (IVSS).
The grant supported “Going Global in West Virginia with GLOBE.” The project’s purpose is to initiate a GLOBE Atmosphere Focus Group to provide West Virginia science educators with training on GLOBE’s Atmosphere protocols and access to loanable classroom kits to implement with their schools’ science fairs.
"It has been an honor receiving this award and taking on my biggest responsibility within The GLOBE Program to date. Serving as the project PI and mentoring teachers to facilitate GLOBE data collection and research projects so far has been extremely rewarding both for me as a GLOBE Partner but also for schools in West Virginia," Josh Revels shared.
Grant Activities
Originally designed to train 12 teachers to borrow the NASA IV&V ERC's GLOBE: Atmosphere kit and implement Atmosphere data collection and learning activities, the vision of this grant was to increase the number of students engaging with GLOBE and to improve school science fair projects with authentic data. The application called for teachers aiming to be science fair mentors and assisting students in GLOBE projects. As a result, three GLOBE teachers are currently mentoring unique student projects that will incorporate atmosphere data from their West Virginia communities.
Because the number of selected mentors for this project was less than anticipated, the project received approval to also purchase equipment for these teams of students to collect data for their projects as well as to sustain the projects for future years in their schools. Additionally, to increase the capabilities of the NASA IV&V ERC GLOBE: Atmosphere kit, a Davis Weather Station and tripod set up have been purchased so that schools may use and upload the weather data during their weather units while the equipment is being borrowed at their school. This Kit Loan & Learn Program is available for any teacher who completes the 4-hour certification training. For more information on loanable kits, check out nasaivverc.org.
Grant Results
As a result of this project, there is now a monthly meeting of the GLOBE Atmosphere Focus Group where GLOBE teachers/mentors have shared their success, obstacles and status of completion of science fair projects. Josh continues to assist two schools in scoping out and installing Davis Weather Stations at their Atmosphere sites. This project will serve beyond the life of this grant when students around the world will be able to access the data from these communities for their own atmospheric studies.
IVSS Projects
Two teams of GLOBE students and their GLOBE teachers have shared their research during the 2024 GLOBE International Virtual Science Symposium.
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The "Clouds and Ground Temps" project conducted by Johnson Elementary in Bridgeport, West Virginia, earned the Problem Solver, Collaborator and Impact Badges. In addition to their research using infrared thermometers and the GLOBE Observer Clouds tool, the school will expand its efforts in citizen science and atmospheric research by maintaining an automated weather station at sites in their county. Data on air temperature, precipitation, barometric pressure and relative humidity will be available both statewide and globally by citizen scientists and students interested in accessing the information for science fair projects.
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Parkersburg High School in Parkersburg, West Virginia, investigated soils in West Virginia and analyzed them against soil data from Florida, Utah and New Jersey. Their project is titled "The Dirty Facts of Soil." In addition to presenting at GLOBE's international fair, the team advanced to the state level of the science fair. As a collaborating school, the team will also house an automated weather station for schools across the state to use their weather data for future science fair projects.
“We’d like to thank Jami Moss (Parkersburg) and Taya Cline (Bridgeport) for not only completing training at Fairmont State University but also partnering with the NASA IV&V ERC and the West Virginia Space Grant Consortium to continue to operate fixed, automated weather stations in their communities,” said Josh Revels. “This enables additional teachers to be trained at Fairmont State University this summer and borrow a portable, automated weather station from NASA to compare their collected data with the atmospheric study sites in both central and western West Virginia. Not only will the GLOBE database contain this additional data from West Virginia, but all West Virginia students may access this data to use for science fair projects in future years.”
The goal of the GLOBE Partnership Mini-Grant Program is to support U.S. Partner activities to help achieve the GLOBE Strategic Priorities and contribute to the evaluation of the impact of GLOBE within the United States. Access the Mini-Grant Award Padlet to learn about how Partnerships that have been awarded a mini-grant are using the funding.
News origin: United States of America