"It's Cool to Have Your Head in the Clouds"

Sixth Grade Citizen Scientists at Shumate Middle School (Gibraltar School District) in Gibraltar, Michigan (United States of America) truly enjoy observing clouds and taking environmental measurements for The GLOBE Program.  Over the course of the school year, each sixth grader will have the opportunity to travel outside to take various environmental measurements.  Currently, our sixth grade students are measuring soil moisture, soil, surface, and current temperatures, precipitation, and clouds.  While taking surface temperature measurements, students are also required to utilize a cloud chart to make cloud observations.  Additionally, our students also take cloud measurements utilizing the GLOBE Observer App and an iPad.  Over the past two and a half years, our students have taken approximately 1,600 cloud measurements.  Three of our students recently analyzed our data, and they found that cirrostratus is the most common cloud formation in Southeast Michigan.

Shumate Middle School is also home to the only WeatherSTEM weather station in the state of Michigan – Gibraltar School District WeatherSTEM.  This amazing weather system provides the Shumate learning community with current weather conditions (powered by Weather Underground),  weather updates via the WeatherSTEM app and social media pages (Gibraltar School District WeatherSTEM Facebook page and the Gibraltar School Wx Twitter page), and daily cloud videos captured over the Shumate Middle School/Carlson High School campus.  Our students, staff, and parents/guardians enjoy watching our daily cloud videos. Many are often amazed to see the different cloud formations that appear between sunrise and sunset.  

Finally, I would personally like to give a big shout out and say thank you to NASA’s Marile Colon Robles (Education Outreach Coordinator: GLOBE Clouds and S’Cool Lead).  Thank you for taking the time to meet with my students via Zoom to discuss the importance of Citizen Science and measuring clouds. My students loved talking with you.  Thank you for all that you do!

We are #GettingScienceDone at Shumate Middle School!