Where Will the Next Generation of Scientists Come From?
The Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program is an international science and education program that provides students and the public worldwide with the opportunity to participate in data collection and the scientific process.
GLOBE has a huge impact in schools around the world.
Its mission is to promote the teaching and learning of science, enhance community environmental literacy and stewardship, and provide research quality environmental observations. The GLOBE program works closely with agencies such as NASA to do projects like validation of SMAP data and the Urban Heat Island/Surface Temperature Student Research Campaign. The figure below shows the impact GLOBE is having in schools worldwide.
Dixon Butler, former GLOBE Chief Scientist, is excited about the recent African project GLOBE is now participating in called the TAHMO project. He says, “Right now, in Kenya and Nigeria, GLOBE schools are putting in over 100 new mini-weather stations to collect weather data, and all that usable data will flow into the GLOBE database.”
Participating in real science at a young age gets youth more ready to be logical, reasoning adults.
Why Use Kids to Collect Data?
Dixon says kids do a pretty good job taking research quality environmental measurements. Working with agencies like NASA gets them excited about science, and participating in real science at a young age gets them more ready to be logical, reasoning adults. He explains, “The 21st century requires a scientifically literate citizenry equipped to make well-reasoned choices about the complex and rapidly changing world. The path to acquiring this type of literacy goes beyond memorizing scientific facts and conducting previously documented laboratory experiments to acquiring scientific habits of mind through doing hands-on, observational science.”
Dixon says when GLOBE started, the plan was to have the kids measure temperature. But one science teacher, Barry Rock, who had third-grade students using Landsat images to do ozone damage observations, called the White House and said, “Kids can do a lot more than measure temperature.” He gave a presentation at the White House where he showed a video of two third grade girls looking at Landsat imagery. They were discussing their tree data, and at one point, one said to the other, ‘That’s in the visible. Let’s look at it in the false color infrared.’ At that point, Barry became the first chief scientist of GLOBE, and he helped set up the science and the protocols that got the program started.
GLOBE uses online and in-person training and protocols to be sure the students’ data is research quality.
Can GLOBE Data be Used by Scientists?
GLOBE uses online and in-person training and protocols to be sure the students’ data is research quality. Dixon explains, “There was a concern that these data be credible, so the idea was to create an intellectual chain of custody where scientists would write the protocols in partnership with an educator so they would be written in an educationally appropriate way. Then the teachers would be trained on those protocols. The whole purpose is to be sure scientists have confidence that the data being collected by GLOBE is usable in research.”
Today GLOBE puts out a Teacher’s’ Guide and the protocols have increased from 17 to 56. The soil area went from just a temperature and moisture measurement to a full characterization. Dixon says, “We’ve been trying to improve it ever since, and I think we’re getting pretty good at it.”
GLOBE students were the only ones going around looking up at the sky doing visual categorization of clouds and counting contrails. It was just no longer being done, except by these students.
What About the Skeptics?
If you ask Dixon how he deals with skeptics of the data collected by the kids, he says, “I tell them to take a scientific approach. Check out the data, and see if they’re good. One year, a GLOBE investigator found a systematic error In U-tube maximum/minimum thermometers mounted vertically, which had been in use for over a century, that no one else found. The GLOBE data were good enough to look at and find the problem. There are things the data are good for and things they’re not good for. Initially, we wanted these data to be used by scientists in the literature, and there have been close to a dozen papers, but I would argue that GLOBE hasn’t yet gotten to the critical mass of data that would make that easier.”
GLOBE did have enough cloud data, however, to be used in an important analysis of geostationary cloud data where the scientist compared GLOBE student data with satellite data Dixon adds, “GLOBE students were the only ones going around looking up at the sky doing visual categorization of clouds and counting contrails. It was just no longer being done, except by GlOBE students. Now GLOBE has developed the GLOBE Observer app that lets everyone take and report cloud observations.”
Young minds need to experience the scientific approach of developing hypotheses, taking careful, reproducible measurements, and reasoning with data.
What’s the Future of GLOBE?
Dixon says GLOBE’s goal is to raise the next generation of intelligent constituents in the body politic. He says, “I thought about this a lot when I worked for the US Congress. In addition to working with GLOBE, I now have a non-profit grant-making organization called YLACES with the objective of helping kids to learn science by doing science. Young minds need to experience the scientific approach of developing hypotheses, taking careful, reproducible measurements, and reasoning with data. Inquiries should begin early and grow in quality and sophistication as learners progress in literacy, numeracy, and understanding scientific concepts. In addition to fostering critical thinking skills, active engagement in scientific research at an early age also builds skills in mathematics and communications. These kids will grow up knowing how to think scientifically. They’ll ask better questions, and they’ll be harder to fool. I think that’s what the world needs, and I see the environment and science as the easiest path to get there.”
Learn more about GLOBE and its database here and about YLACES at www.ylaces.org.
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