Community Blogs
Open social media sharing options menu
Community Blogs
Discover how the GLOBE community is engaging in all things GLOBE through the community blog posts below.
Learn how to create a GLOBE community blog post.
Filter By:
Blogs List
I was excited to attend the Learning to research Summer Institute to enhance some inquiry methods related to climate change. But when we started the program it overwhelmed me. Each day was a bundle of enormous information. I had a new perspective of climate now. I have clear guidelines to develop a project to better assist my students. Exposure to new dimensions of technology made be a little bit more confident to participate actively in GLOBE activities through out the year and after.
I got to know lot of people across the nation and received bulk of information on ...
Read More »
Posted in:
Invitation from L2R landed as a boon to me. After I received my training for GLOBE in 2006, I had not been consistent to participate in GLOBE activities. Climate research project will be the passport for me and my students to get connected with real people who think and act like scientists. The word climate may be familiar to students but the facts associated with it will open the gates to explore and experiment. I am excited to know what this project is in store for me and my students. I am very enthusiastic to learn new ways to research and transfer the knowledge ...
Posted in:
This has been one of the most enriching and educationally productive weeks I have had the opportunity to experience in a quite a long time. To the institute staff, if you didn't hear it from me before, please know that I sincerely appreciate all you have coordinated and put together for us this week. Putting together a meaningful experience for a diverse group of educators is a large task and you did it exceptionally well and always with patience and a smile. Every single session you planned had many new ideas, contacts, links, information, etc. that I was directed ...
Posted in:
There are several things I am taking from the Learning to Research conference. The main thing is the number of contacts with people who are committed to the GLOBE program and understand the value it represents to educators. I got to know the teachers from the schools whose data my students used in their surface temperature campaign last year. This is my first experience with so many people who are doing many different things that benefit students and who feel as strongly as I do. I came with the expectation of acquiring the skills to design a study of aerosols and ozone in Huntington, ...
Posted in:
I'm appreciative of the opportunity to participate in the 2012 L2R project and summer institute. This blog right now is a first for me. I've read blogs quite often but this is my first opportunity to author one. I've often thought a blog could be a great way for me to share information informally with my students. From what I've been able to ascertain, most of my students do not currently follow any blogs or participate in blogging themselves. This will be educational for both myself and my students.
I'm hoping to take advantage of all the great ...
Posted in:
Sometimes, part of being a scientist is dealing with the unexpected. During research projects, scientists might get very surprising results. Or, something might happen to completely change the scope of the project. This is exactly what happened to a group of scientists in Chile . Scientists were studying how man-made armoring, such as seawalls, impact the ecology of beaches in Chile and California. They had surveyed 9 beaches in Chile when something very unexpected happened on 27 February 2010– an 8.8 magnitude earthquake hit .
Seawall before and after the earthquake ...
Posted in:
This post is the second in a series called “Trees in Trouble”. To see the first post in this series click here .
Climate impacts so many things on this planet, most notably the types of flora and fauna that live in a specific region. And for those creatures that have annual cycles tied to the local climate, such as the hibernation of bears, migration of birds, and life cycles of insects, a change in climate can shift their way of life and even have subsequent consequences on the environment they live in.
Take the pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae) for ...
Just over four years after my first visit to Australia (From drought to flood down under: Part I), the tides have turned and the country has gone from experiencing the driest decade on record to having the wettest two-year period on record in 2010-2011. These recent rains have been both a blessing and a curse. The good news is that they helped the region of southeastern Australia start to recover from the long drought (see Figure 1). The bad news is that the rains came on heavy and strong. In January 2011, devastating floods occurred across southeastern ...
In December 2007, I arrived in Australia for the first time ever. It was a critically dry period for the region, as they were in the midst of a terrible drought. Immediately upon my arrival, there were signals of a community in dire straits. Instead of advertisements for products and services, the signs in the airport were encouraging water conservation. My hotel bathroom had a message affixed to the mirror asking me to limit my shower time and water usage. The dams were drying up and many communities faced running out of water in just mere months. As ...
This week we have a guest blogger, Dr. Dixon Butler. Dr. Butler was the GLOBE Chief Scientist from 1996-2003 and now works as a consultant to NASA.
Students working on GLOBE Hydrology Protocols
The general explanation of the scientific method focuses on comparing two situations that differ in only one clearly defined way. One case serves as the control while the other is the experiment. The results must be replicable as a check that the measurements were made correctly and that any other differences between the control and experiment are insignificant. This is an ...
Since the end of January 2012, Europe has been experiencing record-breaking cold temperatures and heavy snowfalls. Temperatures are dropping to -40°C (-40°F) and below in Europe. The canals of Venice are freezing over (the first time since 1991) and sections of the Black Sea have frozen (the first time since 1977). And, Rome has received its first substantial snowfall since 1986.
A small boat cuts through the ice along a canal in Venice. Photo by Marco Sabadin/AFP/Getty Images
The frozen Black Sea in Ukraine (Reuters photo) ...
Posted in:
Field Campaigns:
SCRC
GLOBE Science Topics:
CLIMATE CHANGE
CLIMATE
Investigation Areas:
ATMOSPHERE
Communities in the Sahel region of Africa depend on trees for firewood, food, building materials, and even medicine. Anecdotal observations in this savannah climate, a transition region to the south of the Sahara Desert, have suggested the number of trees is decreasing. A recent study by a group of researchers at the University of California at Berkeley has provided scientific support indicating that trees are indeed dying and the decline is being attributed to climate change. Scientists looked at aerial photos dating back to 1954, satellite images, climate change ...
If you’ve seen the science news headlines in the past few weeks, you may have noticed stories summarizing how 2011 ranked in climate history. What is interesting is that the headlines have been a bit contradictory. For example, if you’ve read the story as reported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the headline reads “ NASA finds 2011 ninth-warmest year on record ”, which to me implies it was another record hot year given that it made the top ten list. Nonetheless, another story reported in ABS news touts that the world wasn’t quite ...
From January 22 to 26, 2012, scientists from around the world gathered for the American Meteorological Society annual meeting, which was held in New Orleans, Louisiana. Scientists from the GLOBE Program stayed next to the beautiful Mississippi River.
The Mississippi River in New Orleans (photo courtesy of Dr. Donna Charlevoix)
The Mississippi River is the lifeblood of New Orleans and has so impacted the city that the city was actually developed around it. The first buildings were constructed around the river edge, which has the highest ground, and now ...
Posted in:
GLOBE Science Topics:
EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE
GLOBE PROTOCOLS
Investigation Areas:
HYDROSPHERE
Primary Audience:
STUDENTS
Last week’s GLOBE Scientists’ blog, “Peculiar weather – just because it sounds odd doesn’t mean it didn’t happen!” talked about inquiry-based learning. If you have a great question and decide to investigate further, how can you share your results? Sharing results is an essential part of the scientific method. If scientists didn’t share their work, how would we know what has already been done? Or what is already known? One of the best options for young scientists to share results is to participate in a science fair. Science fairs often occur in ...
Posted in:
GLOBE Science Topics:
GENERAL SCIENCE
—
20 Items per Page