Stars and STEM Stories

Beginning in 2017, under the guidance of their teachers, Marina Pavlić and Irena Sabo, students from the Prirodoslovna i grafička škola, Croatia, began a two-year study that focused on the overall health of ten trees in a large public park in their city, Rijeka. They wanted to determine what role the trees play in air pollution regulation in the urban area.  >>

Mira Hrvatin joined the GLOBE Program back in 1998. Hrvatin and her students’ study initiated changes on both the local and national scale. In 2007, a Law on Protection Against Light Pollution was passed by the Croatian Parliament.  >>

Three students from the Medical High School in Rijeka, Croatia took third place in the 2013 GLOBE Student Research Exhibition for their project "Water Quality and Revitalization Potential of the Mrtvi Kanal Channel" at the GLOBE Annual Meeting. Their research investigation concerned the channel of stagnant water running through the heart of Rijeka and close to their school. Their ultimate aim was to understand what could be done about it.  >>

Since 2006, GLOBE has invited students around the world to take part in GLOBE at Night, a global campaign to measure night sky brightness. Participants choose a clear night during the two week campaign each year to go outside and observe the constellation Orion between 8 and 10pm local time, match the appearance of their sky with one of seven GLOBE Magnitude Charts, and enter their observations into the GLOBE at Night website. From this international-scale comparison, students learn about the effects of light pollution, defined as any unnecessary, useless emission of light in space outside the zone that needs to be illuminated. Often, light pollution occurs due to the use of bad lighting fixtures and incorrectly set lighting.  >>

For one new GLOBE teacher attending the recent European Regional Train the Trainer Workshop, Martina Pulic, this was not her first experience with GLOBE. Martina attended high school (Gimnazija I Strukovna Skola Jurja Dobrile) in Pazin, Croatia, where her biology teacher introduced her to GLOBE protocols. After high school she was accepted to the Faculty of Science at Zagreb University and graduated in 2007 with a degree in biology. In September 2007, she returned to her high school, this time as a biology teacher, and her principal recommended her to be the GLOBE school coordinator.  >>

Croatian GLOBE schools celebrated International Water Day March 22 by raising public awareness of the importance of water protection through hydrology measurements. One project, designed by students from Srednja skola Prelog was hailed by local water authorities and the news media as a great success worth repeating every year.  >>

On November 12-13, 1998, principals from forty-one Croatian GLOBE schools participated in a special conference hosted by GLOBE schools OS Konjscina, OS Matija Gubec, and OS Marija Bistrica and organized by Croatian GLOBE Country Coordinator Diana Garasic. The conference provided principals a better understanding of the GLOBE science and education activities and of what schools gain through implementation of the Program.  >>

In April 1998, GLOBE students in Croatia gathered in Zagreb to share their research with one another and to report on their GLOBE activities to their nation's President. Three students and a teacher from each of Croatia's 37 active GLOBE schools participated in the special event.  >>