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I bet you would be surprised to learn that since we began to collect " Mosquito Habitat Mappe r" data (5/29/2017), we have had over 20,915 observations submitted! Think about how significant that number is for a tool that has only been available for less than three years!  As many of us who live in the northern hemisphere begin to see signs of spring arriving- robins, crocuses, leaf buds on the trees, and warmer weather- we know that we will also see adult mosquitoes before too long. While there are over 3,500 species of mosquitoes, only about 100 of those species are actually...

High school students in GLOBE teacher Mercy Molina's 11th grade class are working in five small research groups to investigate various aspects of mosquitoes in their region. Even though there will not be active mosquitoes during the time frame they will be doing their investigation (November through January), there are still many aspects of mosquitoes that they decided to learn more about.  The International School at Largo is a unique high school as it focuses on working with students for whom English is a second language, and who have come to the United States within the...

Did you know that the mosquito is the world's most dangerous animal? What could be a better topic for students to research than this common insect that can cause so much damage?  We are looking for teachers and students who are interested in using the GLOBE Mosquito Habitat Mapper as a part of their IVSS science project investigation. You do not need to have active mosquitoes to do this research. There are so many ways that this can be done!  Students can collect data using the Mosquito Habitat Mapper and find out:  - Where in their community they find...

  Water- the world's most precious resource. All around the world, NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission is collected data on how much precipitation is falling to Earth.  NASA has just released its newest and most comprehensive estimate of rain and snow covering nearly 20 years. Version 6 of NASA's IMERG -- the Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) -- combines information from a constellation of satellites are operating in Earth orbit, at a given time, to estimate precipitation over the majority of the Earth's surface....

Water is essential to life as we know it. Too much or too little water can mean the difference between life and death. While we live on a "water planet" and almost three-quarters of our planet is covered with water, less than 2.5% of that water is actually freshwater. You can read more about Earth's freshwater resources in this article, " Precious Freshness ", and watch the video " Show Me the Water ". See the " Freshwater Availability Toolkit " here for even more great resources.  NASA's "Global Precipitation Measurement" (GPM) mission is measuring how much precipitation is...

  Have you ever wondered if you could compare the precipitation data you are collecting to NASA satellite data?  The Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission is celebrating the fact that we have just released the latest version of our IMERG data which includes nearly global precipitation estimates for the past two decades!  You can follow the directions here to find out how to compare and contrast your precipitation data with that of the GPM mission for your location.  If you haven't been collecting precipitation data, you can do this alternative...

The  GLOBE  Mission Mosquito   campaign was delighted to have 23 IVSS projects submitted that used the Mosquito Habitat Mapper tool in their research. These projects came from students in elementary school through graduate students in college and were submitted from 15 different countries.  You can view an interactive map of these projects here .  During the GLOBE Mission Mosquito Education webinar, we invited three of these students and their teachers to share their projects and some "Best Practices" with us. You can view the archived webinar here . ...

GLOBE teacher Vicky Gorman and her middle school students have been working hard to help reduce the threat of mosquito-transmitted disease in their region. Before they began to use the Mosquito Habitat Mapper, they did some research to find out which mosquito-transmitted diseases are found in their location. They live in Burlington County, New Jersey, outlined in red below.  Based on a brochure produced by the NJ government about mosquitoes in their state, the students found out that the two most prevalent diseases transmitted by mosquitoes are West Nile virus and Eastern...

  Patchara Pongmanawut , a GLOBE teacher at the Princess Chulabhorn Science High School in the Trang Province in Thailand, has been doing fantastic work with her students.  These students have been at the top of the Mosquito Habitat Mapper Honor Roll for the past month, and show no sign of slowing down!     "In Thailand, there are many mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue, chikungunya, malaria, Japanese encephalitis, West Nile fever, St. Louis encephalitis, filariasis and Zika", Pongmanawut says. This has really inspired her and her students to go...

This month, the GLOBE Mission Mosquito team is shining our " Spotlight " on the work that Diouf Birane and his students are doing in Senegal.   Birane Diouf and his students at the Lycee Seydina Limamoulaye are proud members of GLOBE’s “ Zika Education and Prevention Project .”  In some areas in West Africa, certain insects carry and spread diseases like African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness), chikungunya, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, dengue fever, leishmaniasis, lymphatic filariasis, malaria, onchocerciasis, Rift Valley fever, West Nile virus,...

It is the middle of winter here in Maryland, and it is cold!  We had a lot of snow last week, and are expecting more precipitation later this week.  Even though I know we have no active mosquitoes outside, I am still using the GLOBE Observer Mosquito Habitat Mapper.  If you are also living somewhere where mosquitoes aren't currently active, we hope you will consider collecting data as well, so you will be prepared when active mosquito season arrives.   Wondering what kind of data you can collect when there are no active mosquitoes?  Great question! ...

We had a fabulous webinar this afternoon in which students in both North America and South America shared their work on using GLOBE protocols to learn more about water in their environment. Meriam Kalloe, the GLOBE Assistant Country Coordinator for Suriname, brought together many students from Anton Resida Middle School who shared information on their use of several GLOBE hydrology protocols to study the quality of water in three locations near their school. They plan to continue to monitor the quality of the water in those three sites. Then Jeff Bouwman's middle school students...

As spring begins here in the northern hemisphere, we often see seasonal changes in our precipitation patterns. As most of you know, heavy rains can result in the mass movement of land- known as "landslides".  These natural hazards occur all over the world, and often result in destruction of property and even death. Scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center are in the process of building an open worldwide database for landslide research- and we need you to help us out! Learn about the " Landslide Reporter " citizen science program in this blog .  Learn more about...

The GLOBE Program is in a unique position to provide citizens worldwide with amazing benefits. One of the biggest benefits, I feel, it that of gaining a larger perspective. I work at Goddard Space Flight Center with the GPM (Global Precipitation Measurement) mission . This Earth-observing satellite is able to measure global precipitation and update these measurements every 30 minutes. You can see the latest data animation for the past week here . As NASA is a key sponsor of The GLOBE Program, many of us who work for NASA are able to share the unique perspectives that...

Water- essential to life and capable also of causing so many natural disasters.. The ENSO Phase III "Water in our Environment" field campaign will be hosting a webinar this Thursday at 18:00 UTC/1 pm EST which will focus on "Connection and Communication" as we listen to students from Texas and Nigeria share ways they use The GLOBE Program protocols to learn about water in their environment. Feel free to join us as your schedule permits- this will be a great webinar to share with your students! 

Right now I am sitting in my home office, watching the trees bend as the wind howls. My automated weather station in my front yard has an anemometer that is simply going nuts, and the wind vane is wildly careening back and forth as the winds pushes in from all directions. We have had wind gusts that exceeded 40 mph and now my weather station is reporting sustained winds at 25 mph.  The power of nature simply astounds me and fills me with wonder and awe. Being able to make visible observations of the impact of the wind- by watching how fast the clouds are moving, seeing the...

We have all been dismayed to see the extent of the damage done during the recent landslides that occurred after forest fires had destroyed much of the vegetation, and then intense rain caused a horrific landslide to occur in Montecito. You can read more here about how NASA's Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 was able to acquire natural color imagery of the affected region both before and after the landslide occurred, which enables us to observe the impact of this natural disaster on the environment. NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement mission (GPM) measured the...

As many of us have seen on the news recently , a great many people in southern California were impacted by mudslides last night. We know these dangerous natural disasters occur all over the world. Scientists globally are working hard to be able to better predict these devastating events. You can learn more about the use of NASA's satellite data to detect potential landslides here .  I recently attended a hearing for government officials that focused on the increasing danger we face from landslides and mudslides and wrote this blog that summarized many of the reports...

The ENSO Phase III Field Measurement Campaign is focusing on “Water in Our Environment” during the 2017-2018 school year. Each month we have a webinar using Zoom, and we like to spotlight a different region each time. Our Feb. 8th spotlight will shine on the Near East and Africa. On February 8 th , we would like to shine this spotlight on the wonderful GLOBE scientists, teachers, and students from all 13 GLOBE countries in this region. We would therefore like to reach out and invite anyone within the GLOBE Program to consider participating in this webinar. Everyone is invited to...

  It turns out that we are most likely entering another mild La Niña winter across the globe. This article, “ La Nina Makes a Quiet Return ”, describes how scientists are able to use data on sea surface temperatures from were made by altimeters on the  Jason-2  and  Jason-3  satellites, and show averaged  sea surface height  anomalies. Climatologists are predicting that this La Niña should last through the 2017-2018 winter period in the northern hemisphere, and then should change back to neutral conditions by late spring. Be sure to become a...