Community Blogs

In May 2020, citizen scientist Carmen Mandel met two major milestones: she marked her one-year anniversary of being a GLOBE Observer and she single-handedly expanded the Clouds satellite match data by 36%. Carmen uses GLOBE Observer to record clouds 2-3 times daily every time she gets a notification that a NASA satellite is overhead. She sends her data to GLOBE, but then she records her observation in her own clouds journal. When she receives an email from NASA Langley Research Center matching her observation to satellite data, she adds that to her journal as well. On...

Hi, my name is Nate Raynor and I am the GLOBE Teacher at Mescalero Apache School located in south central New Mexico. GLOBE Teacher Nate Raynor (left) with his students and NM GLOBE Partner Christy Wall  (second from left) at the 2018 SRS in Boulder, CO. This is my 2nd year using GLOBE protocols in the classroom. I like GLOBE because it gives my students a chance to work outside and not be stuck in a classroom all day. With GLOBE, my students begin to see their environment from a different aspect. I am currently using GLOBE protocols in two of my classes. My Biology classes...

Clouds are amazing to observe and always seem to capture the attention of all, from little ones to the young at heart. The GLOBE Clouds team would like to help all of those that would be interested in doing research with clouds. A good research question is always tricky so here are some tips and ideas to get you started! What is a good research question? It is not always easy to come up with a research question, but GLOBE has a good checklist to help you out! You can even assign points and see how many points does your question total as a good research question. A lot of times scientists...

The GLOBE Observer app (available for iPhones and Android devices) is a new, step-by-step way to submit cloud observations to NASA. Use your GLOBE sign-in information to sync your observations with your GLOBE data entry.  Here are some simple tips and tricks on how to better identify clouds while using the app. Your latitude, longitude, and time of day with be filled in automatically by the app!   1. What does your sky look like? Is your sky completely clear with no contrails? Are there clouds or is the sky obscured that it makes it difficult to make any observation? This is...

The NASA GLOBE Clouds team is excited to highlight Mr. Gary Popiolkowski, a middle school science teacher at Chartiers-Houston Jr./Sr. High School in Houston, PA, USA. Mr. Popiolkowski has been teaching for 44 years and has been a GLOBE teacher since 1995. He has had his students doing cloud observations for the past 18 years, submitting over 15,000 observations! He has also been doing virtual connections with Patumwan Demonstration School in Thailand each year for the past four years. We ask Mr. Popiolkowski how he does it! Here is what he shared: Each period of the day the students...