News - United States of America

GLOBE Has Been a Continuing Tradition for 26 Years at Kingsburg High School

Kingsburg High School – is a model of how GLOBE can be a sustainable program that benefits both teachers and students. Kingsburg High School has been a GLOBE school since GLOBE began in 1995. Started by now Mentor Trainer Peggy Foletta, Kingsburg environmental science students practiced GLOBE protocols and entered GLOBE data at the beginning of the GLOBE program. Now, the GLOBE program at Kingsburg is headed by science teacher Leigh-Ann Olsen.  Leigh-Ann is intimately familiar with all GLOBE has to offer her students as she, herself, participated in GLOBE as Peggy’s student when she was in 11th and 12th grades. Why come back to Kingsburg and do GLOBE? Leigh-Ann reflects: “I had a fascination with water quality testing and macroinvertebrate studies, so that was really my forte. I recall even performing some tests on the Merced River in Yosemite when on a family trip during the summer to help add more data for our school. Coming back to Kingsburg High as a teacher allowed me to pick up where Peggy left off, and introduced me to the Student Research Symposium which gave my students some incredible experiences that were different, but just as impactful as the ones I had experienced in high school. Doing real science, collecting real data that is meaningful to these students is what GLOBE is all about, and I'm happy to be back at it this year!”

Since 1995, Kingsburg has made 67,681 data entries into the GLOBE database. Kingsburg High School has participated in the Pacific Region Student Research Symposium since 2016, when the event was first held at NASA Jet Propulsion Labs in Pasadena, CA.  Inderpreet and Jaskarenpreet (Figure 2) presented their research in 2016 on the air quality of their local community.  Students from Kingsburg also presented in multiple years. Judith, Jillian, Ajmeet, and Saneh, (Figure 3) presented their research projects during their 10th (NASA Ames), 11th (NatureBridge Golden Gate Recreational Area), and 12th grades (International Virtual Student Symposium).

Air quality continues to be a concern for the Kingsburg community due to California wildfires and drought. Leigh-Ann continues to keep up with air quality monitoring at her school as they are in the process of getting their Purple Air monitor installed and are waiting for their Calitoo that measures aerosol optical thickness. 

Both of these women (Peggy and Leigh-Ann) put in a lot of hours in promoting and continuing the GLOBE program over the past 26 years. And the tradition continues as Kingsburg graduates come back to the campus and tutor emerging environmental science students this year. Leigh-Ann hopes they can help train and guide the next generation of GLOBE students!

 

Figure 1: Leigh-Ann Olsen (l) and Peggy Foletta (r) have led the GLOBE Program at Kingsburg High School since 1995.

Figure 2: 2016 Student Research Symposium at NASA JPL  (Inderpreet & Jaskarenpreet - left).

Figure 3: Kingsburg students receive recognition award at the student research symposium in 2019.

News origin: United States of America

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