Anne Lewis, South Dakota Discovery Center special projects director, says classes that use GLOBE collect data, participate in field campaigns, and can do research.
"GLOBE is a huge international project that has students doing real science", says Lewis. "South Dakota's students will benefit, especially as science teaching transitions to include more hands-on learning."
Lewis says that a workshop for teachers and out of school program staff will be held in June.
GLOBE teachers and students set up a study site where they monitor soils, water, atmosphere, land cover and seasons. Lewis stresses that teachers do not have to do all the protocols. "Each classroom is different in terms of location and time available. Only a few teachers may be able to do everything but all teachers can do something."
GLOBE is more than data collection, says Lewis. "Teachers can collaborate with other classrooms around the world. For example, a 6th grade class in South Dakota could compare seasonal change data with a school in New Zealand or Australia."
Classrooms can also participate in field campaigns, a focused effort to collect data on specific phenomena that will be used by scientists. "The University of Toledo calls for surface temperature data every year in December as part of their research on climate," says Lewis.
The South Dakota Discovery Center and the Outdoor Campus West are both GLOBE partners. Partners are responsible for supporting GLOBE at a local or regional level. "With two partners in the state, we have that many more resources to support GLOBE."
Lewis says that GLOBE workshops for teachers have been held in South Dakota before. "There are a few teachers using GLOBE. However, there is no network to connect and support them after the training. That is the job of the partner institutions."
To build the support network the South Dakota Discovery Center and Outdoor Campus West are sponsoring a train-the-trainer workshop in April. "We want to get a wide network of people who can support teachers in their classrooms and programs. So we will start with getting them up to speed and then reach out to the teachers in June."
"GLOBE will add a lot to science education in South Dakota," Lewis says. "It's an exciting project."
Teachers practice GLOBE cloud protocol.
GLOBECloudPicture by Anne Lewis is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
