News - Europe and Eurasia
Upstream Alliance Sea Kayaking Expedition Uses GLOBE Protocols
On 9 September 2015, members of the Upstream Alliance research team embarked on an 800-km (500 mile), 30-day sea kayak expedition circumnavigating the Delmarva Peninsula, a large peninsula on the East Coast of the United States. Upstream Alliance was founded in 2015 to cultivate, educate, and advance the next generation of leaders for environmental stewardship. Through outdoor adventures, problem solving, and issue investigation, the Delmarva Peninsula trip will illustrate the power of experiential learning to build participants' connections to peers and place.
Upstream Alliance expedition members will collect and report authentic data on the waters surrounding the peninsula for students to use in analysis, research, and understanding of key issues in and around the watershed. This will be accomplished by collecting GLOBE Hydrosphere measurements along with other measurements, such as juvenile fish and aquatic grass surveys. GLOBE measurements will be taken following protocols for determining water temperature, pH, salinity, dissolved oxygen, and turbidity along with clouds and contrails.
Through the GLOBE and Upstream websites, all data will be shared with classrooms across the Chesapeake Bay watershed and the world. Upstream Alliance staff will work with teachers to incorporate this adventure of discovery into their teaching.
Support for equipment to take the GLOBE measurements and get them to students is provided by a grant from Youth Learning as Citizen Environmental Scientists (ylaces.org). The measurements will be taken by GLOBE teacher Alex Crooks and reported during the voyage. She will part of a core team of seven individuals ranging from 25 to 75 years of age from all types of careers (teachers, managers, lawyers and writers). They will chronical this incredible expedition, and emerging environmental leaders will be joining them on the way to contribute even more capability to the team.
type: globe-news
News origin: GLOBE Implementation Office