News - Arkansas Partnership for STEM Education
GLOBE Showcased at AGU Annual Meeting
AGU’s Annual Meeting, held 15–19 December 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, attracted more than 25,000 scientists, students, and educators from over 100 countries, making it the world’s largest gathering of Earth and space scientists. GLOBE had a strong presence at the meeting, contributing 19 presentations—several led by students (see *asterisks)—and a featured plenary session by Dr. John Francis, Planetwalker and long-time GLOBE supporter.
This year, the GLOBE Observer Mosquito and Land Cover science team supported 49 summer interns through the NASA STEM Enhancement in Earth Science (SEES) program, guiding them through five team projects that leveraged GLOBE data. All five teams showcased their results during the Bright STaRS poster session, including the EarthLens team, who used STELLA to enhance land cover observations.
Explore the abstracts below to learn more about GLOBE’s impact and contributions at AGU.
Featured Plenary:
- Planetwalker: In the Footsteps of Kindness, Listening and Learning (Dr. John Francis, Planetwalk, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Town Hall:
- NASA GLOBE at 30 (Primary Convener: Charles Vorosmarty, GIO-STEPE Science Lead, CUNY Advanced Science Research Center)
In-person Poster and Oral Presentations:
- Tracking Airplanes and Contrails: Results from the Aviation Weather Mission with NASA and the Civil Air Patrol (Lead Presenter: Shannon Babb, Civil Air Patrol)
- Building an Learning Ecosystem within an Learning Ecosystem (Lead Presenter: Kevin Czajkowski, GLOBE Mission Earth, University of Toledo)
- Sky to Sea: GLOBE and 4-H in the Sub-Arctic (Lead Presenter: Christina Buffington, GIO-STEPE Deputy Director of Science, Training, Education, and Public Engagement, University of Alaska Fairbanks)
- Persistent Pollutants: Engaging the Public in the Search for Light-Absorbing Particles and Microplastics in Arctic Snow and Seawater (Lead Presenter: Ulyana Pena, Science in the Wild)
- AI and AOIs: Predicting Fire Risk with Remote Sensing and Field Data (Lead Presenter: Sophia Farber, NASA SEES Internship Program)*
- EarthLens: A Novel Drone-based Citizen Science Tool for Land Cover Observation and Analysis (Lead Presenter: Nandini Khaneja, NASA SEES Internship Program)*
- Predictive Modeling of Flash Floods: Investigating Hydrology and Land Cover Dynamics through Remote Sensing Data (Lead Presenter: Khushi Patel, NASA SEES Internship Program)*
- Understanding the Effects of Urbanization on Plant Ecosystems in Selected Areas of Interest Using Land Cover Analysis through Remote Sensing and Ground Observations (Lead Presenter: Vineeth Erram, NASA SEES Internship Program)*
- Utilizing NASA’s Sentinel-1 to Detect and Map Floods in Urban and Rural Locations Across the Globe (Lead Presenter: Sophie Wassef, NASA SEES Internship Program)*
- An Analysis into the Impact of Federal Land Protection on Environmental Quality (Lead Presenter: Samantha Zilla, NASA SEES Internship Program)*
- Calibrating the Globe: A Framework to Transform Citizen Science Potential Bias into a Predictive Ecological Blueprint (Lead Presenter: Di Yang, University of Florida)
- Fostering Science - Impact of a science camps program designed for youth in the foster care system (Lead Presenter: Katie Spellman, GLOBE Alaska, University of Alaska Fairbanks)
- Voices from the Classroom: Teacher Perspectives on GLOBE Mission EARTH's Impact on STEM Learning and Science Community- Building (Lead Presenter: Nektaria Adaktylou, GLOBE Mission Earth, West Virginia University)
- Capacity Building and Community Engagement Efforts in Support of NISAR Mission Science (Lead Presenter: Erika Podest, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
Online Poster Presentations:
- “Trees within LAC”: Environmental Monitoring and Education through Citizen Science in Latin America and the Caribbean (2023–2025) (Lead Presenter: Mariana Savino, LAC Regional Coordinator, GLOBE Program Argentina)
- DRIFT-ST: Evaluating Dimensionality Reduction Techniques for Structure Discovery and Outlier Detection in GLOBE Surface Temperature Data (Lead Presenter: Marlin Wong, NASA SEES Internship Program)*
- Identifying Outliers in the GLOBE Surface Temperature Protocol (Lead Presenter: Vin Bhat, NASA SEES Internship Program)*