Stars and STEM Stories

If you were driving across the southern tier of the United States recently, you might have seen a young couple on a bright red bicycle built for two festooned with yellow gear bags peddling from Santa Barbara, California to Arlington, Virginia.  >>

A trio of GLOBE teachers, just completing their student-teaching stints, may be revolutionizing science education in a corner of the country. Tina Allen, Jenifer Burnes and Jesus Sustaita are keenly motivated to spark interest in science and technology in their home of Yakima Valley in eastern Washington. It is a rural area with high minority and migrant populations, where schools have few resources and where Bill Gates and the technology centers on the other side of the mountains in Seattle seem a world away.  >>

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these GLOBE students from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. Originally said about Persian message couriers in 500 B.C. and made famous by the U.S. postal service, that paraphrase suits the GLOBE students of Reynolds Junior/Senior High School in Greenville, PA.  >>

Top educators from Howard University in Washington DC and Norfolk University in Virginia met recently at GLOBE headquarters to sign on as partners of the Program to commemorate Historically Black Colleges and Universities Week.  >>

GLOBE students from six countries have contributed poems and essays to a book on the importance of clean air. This work is part of the United Air Fund, a Dutch initiative on worldwide CO2 management.  >>

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the White House recently honored nine GLOBE teachers with one of this country's most prestigious teaching awards: The Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching.  >>

There is constant activity, and respect for the value of different cultures and long-distance learning, at GLOBE's franchise at the University of Alaska - Fairbanks this summer. The northernmost US partnership held a Train-the-Trainer workshop and a regular Teacher Training workshop in the space of a few weeks. Also, as prominently noted in the local newspaper, Franchise Coordinator Elena Sparrow won a million-dollar grant to conduct additional training that will link GLOBE studies with "Native ways of knowledge."  >>

At the foot of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington DC, and with U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell attending, GLOBE students from the Glendover Global Studies School this summer advanced their study of soils and clouds. In a ideal lesson for students whose home are has many farms, GLOBE principal Investigator Dr. Elissa Levine demonstrated the proper taking of soil samples from the Capitol grounds and explained the value of knowing about local soil types and moisture level.  >>

The Czech GLOBE Program celebrated Earth Day 2000 with their third Czech GLOBE Games recently, in Humpolec, Czech Republic. Almost 300 Czech students and 46 teachers from 33 schools, as well as Norwegian GLOBE Country Coordinator Karl Hetland with 36 students and 18 teachers from his GLOBE schools participated in the Games.  >>

Highly successful GLOBE Train-the-Trainer workshops recently were held in Ghana and The Gambia, with local public officials and educators, GLOBE Country Coordinators, Peace Corps Volunteers and representatives of GLOBE-US . Working under a steady West African sun, and serenaded by the screeches of multi-colored birds, more than 70 men and women laid out pixels, sampled soils, tested waters, studied data graphs, and discussed the Program's added emphasis on student inquiry.  >>