GLOBE News
Keeping Up with GLOBE Stars? See How We Shine!
One of the latest GLOBE “Star Stories” shined a light on a dazzling example of GLOBE community initiative, passion, and scientific excellence, “Students at Lexington School for the Deaf in New York (USA) Participate in GLOBE Air Quality Campaign – Discover Their Power to Contribute to Science in a Significant Way.”
In March 2018, GLOBE students at the Lexington School for the Deaf (located in East Elmhurst, New York, USA) began participating in the GLOBE U.S. Air Quality Student Research Campaign. Raising their focus to the sky, the high school students soon became adept at using GLOBE’s atmosphere protocols and Calitoo sun photometers to gather their elevated observations. Along the way, they also discovered their ability – as individuals and as a team – to make significant contributions to science.
The students’ teacher, Jillian Anderson, said she was contacted by NASA Langley Research Center (Hampton, Virginia, USA) to see if she was interested in joining the research campaign. “I started reading about GLOBE and I immediately jumped into this amazing opportunity.”
At that time, she and her assistant teacher, Dolly Dominguez, and their students – with the help of their new mentor, NASA Research Scientist Dr. Margaret Pippin – began their scientific observation adventure toward higher ground – all eyes to the skies!
The scientific endeavor gave the students new-found confidence – in themselves and in each other. “My students have started to realize that they are indeed contributing to science in a significant way! Not only are they learning about Earth science, but they have also started to understand the impact each individual has on the Earth, as a system,” Anderson said.
When asked about the importance of this scientific work for her students, Anderson said that she wanted her students to acknowledge that they can significantly contribute to science. “I think it is important for my students to realize that they have great skills that can help others. Since American Sign Language is a visual language, these students’ visual skills are top-notch! Therefore; their observations may very well be amongst the most reliable. My students’ involvement in GLOBE may bring awareness and interest in Deaf culture to other GLOBE students, teacher, and scientists – and that is very important to me as well.”
“The participation of Lexington School for the Deaf students is important to GLOBE,” Anderson said, “because it can inspire others to include underrepresented students so that GLOBE can have a very rich and diverse group of citizen scientists collaborating with each other.”
NASA’s Dr. Pippin agreed. “We encourage them to keep up their great work, and we invite other schools to continue submitting their observations to the GLOBE website as well.”
The students crafted a special video to share their scientific excursion into the clouds. To watch the video and learn more about their scientific work, click here. To read the full Star Story, click here.
To check out more GLOBE Star Stories, click here.
Do you have a GLOBE Star Story to share? GLOBE Stars are stories of projects, people and extraordinary activities being conducted around the world in connection to GLOBE. These are our GLOBE Stars, the bright lights that spark our imagination and inspire us with news of GLOBE at work in the world. If so, GLOBE wants to hear all about it! Send your story of people, projects, or activities to share on the GLOBE website.
For instructions on how to submit a Star Story, and an easy-to-fill-out template, click here!
type: globe-newsNews origin: GLOBE Implementation Office