Stars and STEM Stories

Schools from the Cotahuasi area have had environmental educational camping trips with 70 GLOBE club participants every spring, over the past 5 years. Each year has an emphasis area. This year, the focus was on the habitat of an amazing cactus Puya Raimondi. Students were organized into study groups to measure and document; weather, clouds, land cover, water quality and bird sighting and habitat. The giant Puya Raimondi cacti grows up to 4 meters in height and are rare and endangered due to habitat loss. The cactus produces flowers once every 80-100 years, and then dies. The flowers provide nectar to a wide variety of birds and insects; including the Giant Hummingbird.  >>

Diana R. Johns, a teacher of Advanced Placement Environmental Science (APES) at Crestwood High School in Dearborn Heights, Michigan USA, has been involved with GLOBE since 1995 and has influenced the path of many students over the years. Two of her students, 17 year-olds Ahmad Awada and Hussein Makki, recently earned first place at the GLOBE Student Research Exhibition for their research project "Correlations between vernal pool phenology and a breeding population of Bufo americanus (a species of toad) in Dearborn Heights, Michigan."  >>

The Peru Ministry of Environment and National Coordinator of GLOBE have been promoting GLOBE nationwide as a valuable tool for the development of a scientific culture in children and youth of the country. On 14 October 2013, the Institution of Education (I.E.) Javier Perez de Cuellar Carampoma District in the Province of Huarochirí in Lima, joined the GLOBE Program by installing an instrument shelter that contains the necessary tools for measuring and monitoring atmospheric data.  >>

Multiple trainings were held in southern Peru in the month of October 2013 in the Region of Moquegua, at schools in Omate, Moquegua, and Ilo. The trainings focused on the use of GLOBE Atmosphere protocols with an emphasis on climate, using weather stations and equipment such as maximum / minimum thermometers provided by the Ministry of Environment. Teachers, students and municipal representatives participated in the hands-on training.  >>

More than forty new and old participants in the GLOBE Program in Finland kicked off the new school year with an event at the U.S. Embassy in Helsinki. With the assistance of Senior Scientist Achim Drebs from the Finnish Meteorological Institute, the group transformed old ski poles into snow depth measurement sticks and learned how to use them to take scientific measurements of snow depth. This school year GLOBE schools in Finland will participate in a national snow depth measurement project, a project that can be adapted to all ages across the school curriculum.  >>

A recent training workshop for Oman's GLOBE teachers and supervisors from 22 schools added ten new schools to the Sultanate's GLOBE Program. The Ministry of Education in Oman organized the five-day training event, held 6-10 October 2013. With the addition of these new schools, the GLOBE Program is now active in every region in Oman.  >>

In Ushuaia, capital city of Tierra del Fuego Province in Argentina, also called "the southernmost city of the world", there is a GLOBE school with a long history in GLOBE achievements; this is Escuela Provincial Nº 1 Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (Provincial School No.1 Domingo Faustino Sarmiento). The city slogan is "Ushuaia, End of the World, Beginning of Everything."  >>

Students from five GLOBE schools in Bhubaneswar, India took part in the 6-7 September 2013 meeting organized to mark the establishment of a South Asia regional network for conservation of wetlands and biodiversity.  >>

Three students from the Medical High School in Rijeka, Croatia took third place in the 2013 GLOBE Student Research Exhibition for their project "Water Quality and Revitalization Potential of the Mrtvi Kanal Channel" at the GLOBE Annual Meeting. Their research investigation concerned the channel of stagnant water running through the heart of Rijeka and close to their school. Their ultimate aim was to understand what could be done about it.  >>

Seventy-nine GLOBE Students from 13 Mexico City technical secondary schools gathered on 15 November 2012 to present research papers they wrote using GLOBE student data collected from 2009 to 2012. The event was held as part of the Third Meeting of Young GLOBE and took place at the Center for Technology Innovation in Education (CITE) of Mexico City.  >>