News - University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez Campus
Discover Magazine Article Highlights the Important Role of GLOBE Observers
A recent article (18 November 2021), “Four Ways (in One App) to Help NASA Study the Changing Planet,” written by Anna Funk, and published in Discover Magazine, discusses how citizen scientists can help “research trees, clouds, and more just by snapping photos.”
“Researchers can accomplish amazing things these days with satellites – they can study clouds and climate, forests, and land use change and even bird migrations. But with so much satellite data, it can be hard to match up measurements from the sky above with information about what’s actually on the ground. That’s where citizen scientists like you come in,” Funk said in the article. “The app is simple to use, and currently has four different projects that are looking for your observations of clouds, trees, mosquito habitat, and land cover near you.”
“NASA studies Earth from space, looking down,” Holli Kohl, the coordinator of The GLOBE Program’s app, GLOBE Observer, stated in the article. “Take clouds, for example: You, on the ground, have a different perspective; you’re looking up. We could send scientists to a few locations on the planet to take some of those ground-based concurrent measurements, but only a few. But citizen scientists are everywhere.”
“But you don’t need to travel the world to submit helpful data,” Funk said in the article. “Observations from your own backyard can be just as important. You can find simple instructions for taking photos and submitting your observations for each project on the GLOBE Observer app. After a quick in-app training, you’re ready to get started.”
To view the article, click here.
News origin: GLOBE Implementation Office