STEM Network Blog Intro

GISN & STEM Professional's Blog

The GLOBE International STEM Network (GISN) and STEM Professional's Blog is an online collaborative effort where scientists associated with GLOBE post their thoughts, comments, and philosophies about a variety of science topics.

GLOBE strongly encourages positive and productive discussions to further advance the scientific understanding of all involved with The GLOBE Program.
 


 

Asset Publisher

Filter By:

Blogs List


2022 Celebration   NASA GLOBE CLOUD GAZE has tagged over 735,000 photographs of sky and clouds all because of you! The photographs are part of cloud reports sent in from over 120 different countries and regions around the world. NASA GLOBE CLOUD GAZE is closing with a very successful story. The project will stop collecting data on 1 December 2022. On 16 December 2022, NASA GLOBE CLOUD GAZE will no longer be a NASA sponsored project. The website will remain open. The datasets will be available for researchers and participants to use. The Cloud interactives ( Cover and ...


Posted in: Investigation Areas: ATMOSPHERE   News Topics: NEWS BRIEFS


The NASA GLOBE Clouds Quarterly Update is available for September/October/November 2022! Match to a Million Satellite Matches Celebration Thanks to you, The GLOBE Program has reached one million satellite observations matched to your cloud reports! Share in the celebration and thank you videos made just for you. GLOBE Clouds New Satellite Matching: NOAA-20 The NASA GLOBE Clouds team will soon be adding NOAA-20 to our satellite matching capabilities. Learn more about NOAA-20 and updates to the GLOBE Clouds satellite matching schedule. Meet an Expert: Naudia Graham ...


Posted in: Curriculum: SCIENCE AND MATH   GLOBE International STEM Network (GISN): GLOBE INTERNATIONAL STEM NETWORK (GISN)   GLOBE Science Topics: BACKYARD SCIENCE CLIMATE CLIMATE CHANGE GLOBE PROTOCOLS EARTH AS A SYSTEM   Investigation Areas: ATMOSPHERE CLOUDS


Have you ever wondered why NASA has chosen to follow water ? NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the distinct signature of water outside our solar system. NASA's Artemis program is examining the presence of water on the Moon in advance of sending and establishing a sustainable human presence there.  The answer is simple - water is key to life as we know it, including on planet Earth. Only 2.5% of the water on Earth is fresh, and only a tiny fraction of that is available for use. NASA and other space agencies’ remote sensing satellites provide vital information to ...


Posted in: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION   GLOBE Science Topics: EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE   Investigation Areas: HYDROSPHERE EARTH AS A SYSTEM


What motivated you to volunteer as a NASA citizen scientist? How did you learn about NASA citizen science? Well ,I learned about NASA citizen science when I participated in the 2020 (STEM). Due to my experiences with mosquitoes and mosquito-borne disease as a Sri Lankan, I decided to join the Mosquito Mappers team, where part of the was collecting and analyzing GLOBE Mosquito Habitat Mapper and GLOBE Observer Clouds citizen science data. I saw opportunities to utilize my interest in programming to automate certain tasks that made the data we were using more accessible and easier to ...


Posted in: Investigation Areas: BIOSPHERE MOSQUITOES


The Summer 2022 NASA SEES Internship program was a memorable one for the GLOBE Mission EARTH (GME) Team! The 6-week period of hard work, commitment, and dedication by all members led to creative and outstanding research projects from both the Urban Heat Island Effect (UHIE) and the Air Quality Initiative (AQI) Teams. The wide geographical spread of the NASA SEES students allows them to take observations using different GLOBE protocols across the United States. The AQI Team led by GLOBE Mission EARTH Research Assistant Sara Mierzwiak and GME Teacher Janene Smith mentored a group of 7 ...


Posted in: Curriculum: EDUCATION RESEARCH SCIENCE AND MATH TECHNOLOGY STEM   Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION   GLOBE International STEM Network (GISN): GLOBE INTERNATIONAL STEM NETWORK (GISN)   Student Research Reports: MISSION EARTH REPORT


GLOBE completed another great month of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) Intensive Observation Period (IOP) in March 2022. 107 schools participated and took a total of 1699 observations throughout the month. It is great to see more and more schools becoming active in this very important project. UHI is becoming more and more important around the world. Saudia Arabia, Croatia, Greece and Taiwan had many schools take observations during March. I am so grateful for the participation of all of the students and teachers and the great work they have done. I would really like to encourage all of the ...


Posted in:


                                           My involvement in the Stem Enhancement in Earth Science (SEES) program started sometime around early spring 2021. The involvement was preceded by a strong recommendation from Dr. Kevin Czajkowski, PI, GLOBE Mission Earth, The University of Toledo. Indeed, to me as a member of the GLOBE International STEM Network (GISN), my participation in SEES became an opportunity to invoke the GISN mandate which includes to mentor and inspiring ...


Posted in: Curriculum: ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION EDUCATION RESEARCH SCIENCE AND MATH TECHNOLOGY STEM   Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION   Field Campaigns: WATERSHEDS SMAP SURFACE TEMPERATURE GPM   GLOBE Science Topics: EARTH AS A SYSTEM   Investigation Areas: ATMOSPHERE HYDROSPHERE PEDOSPHERE (SOIL) BIOSPHERE   Learning Activities: EARTH AS A SYSTEM   Primary Audience: PARTNERS SCIENTISTS STUDENTS


The Urban Heat Island Effect Intensive Observation Period (IOP) has started. The weather in the Northern Hemisphere has started to get warmer as meteorological spring started March 1. There was an amazing weather situation where I live this past Saturday. You can see in the images on the left that I drove about 20 miles (32 km) from my house in Michigan to the Oak Openings Park in Ohio. There is a warm front stalled across the area. It was near 40 F (6 C) near my house but in the upper 60s (20 C) at the park. You can see in the right image that there was a warm front between my house ...


Posted in:


I thought October 5, 2021, would be a normal day. I sat in a diner with my family after school, scrolling through my email and sipping a mint chocolate chip milkshake. It had been two months since my NASA STEM Enhancement in Earth Science (SEES) internship ended– or so I thought. Suddenly, I received an intriguing email. The subject line read, “AGU Fall Meeting 2021 Abstract Status Notification.” I had forgotten that my Mosquito Mapping team submitted an abstract in the first place. Taking a break from my milkshake, I curiously opened the email: “On behalf of the AGU Fall Meeting ...


Posted in:


In the Toledo area, Dr. C and schools in the area focused on studying artificial turf versus grass soccer and football fields. Artificial turf was much warmer than natural grass. This is combining the GLOBE Urban Heat Island Field Study with research by Vasco Mantas from the University of Coimbra in Portugal and George Xian from the USGS Eros Data Center and the AREN Project with Andy Henry and Geoff Bland. University of Toledo students using the AREN TerraROVER on the UT football field. You can see that the artificial turf of the football field (called the Glass Bowl) and the ...


Posted in: Field Campaigns: SURFACE TEMPERATURE   Investigation Areas: SURFACE TEMPERATURE   Student Research Reports: U.S. STUDENT RESEARCH SYMPOSIA (SRS) MISSION EARTH REPORT


During the SEES internship, I got the opportunity to do data collection fieldwork. This required me to go around my neighborhood and take pictures of specific points that had been calculated using a Python notebook. Some of these points were in parts of my neighborhood that I’d never been to, despite being in my fourteenth year of living there. I even saw a pack of wild javelinas in a particularly remote spot! The task definitely took longer than I expected, but it felt good to know that I had contributed data that would actually help NASA scientists.  I also got to brainstorm my ...


Posted in: Investigation Areas: EARTH AS A SYSTEM MOSQUITOES   Primary Audience: STUDENTS TEACHERS   Student Research Reports: INTERNATIONAL VIRTUAL SCIENCE SYMPOSIUM REPORT MISSION MOSQUITO REPORT


Did you know that clouds can both warm and cool our planet? Keeping an eye on clouds helps NASA study our climate. You can notice some of these changes by just looking at the clouds.  Here are some examples you might have already noticed: Do all clouds cast shadows? Low thick clouds tend to cast the most shadows. The shadows show you how the cloud is blocking the light from the sun from reaching the ground. This is similar to you placing your hand in front of your eyes when it is too sunny. Your hand is blocking the light from reaching your eyes. This is the same as the ...


Posted in: Curriculum: SCIENCE AND MATH STEM   GLOBE Science Topics: BACKYARD SCIENCE CLIMATE CLIMATE CHANGE GENERAL SCIENCE GLOBE PROTOCOLS EARTH AS A SYSTEM SCIENTIST SKILLS   Investigation Areas: ATMOSPHERE   Primary Audience: ALUMNI COUNTRY COORDINATORS PARTNERS SCIENTISTS STUDENTS TEACHERS TRAINERS


The weather has been really kicking up quite a bit of whacky weather in November.  On November 2, 2021, the town of Kikonai in northern Japan’s Kokkaido prefecture set a record amount of rainfall of 2.2 inches (5.5 centimeters) in 10 minutes.  Wow!!  That’s a lot of rain in a short amount of time!  You can see where the rainfall fell on the image below! (credit: Extreme weather around the world amid COP26 - The Washington Post ) Meanwhile in Uzbekistan, it saw the worst dust storm in about 50 years!  The dust finally settled on November 4, 2021 but ...


Posted in: Investigation Areas: ATMOSPHERE EARTH AS A SYSTEM


​​​​​​ ​​​​​​​ Image Credit: Jenn Glaser, ScribeArts   If the last mosquito season felt longer, or if mosquito bites seemed to hurt more than you remembered, you didn’t imagine it! Mosquitoes respond sensitively to changes in heat, humidity, and precipitation, and serve as buzzy, annoying sentinels of our changing climate. Here’s how mosquitoes are letting us know our climate is changing. With climate change comes an increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events -- think of this summer’s historic heat dome in the Pacific Northwest, the wildfires in the western ...


Posted in:


Coming into the NASA SEES Internship, I had only ever experienced science through a one-dimensional lens. I always knew the results, experimenting just to prove existing knowledge. This internship taught me to look outside the box and challenge my preconceived notions to discover new relationships that exist on our earth. Through our weekly meetings, I got to interact with guest speakers and my mentors who were taking on various projects in the field of epidemiology. Inspired by one such meeting where Dr. Chellappan used machine learning to predict the mosquito species in an ...


Posted in:


  Stratus clouds are one of the three main types of clouds. Remember that there are many types of clouds that fall into three main categories: cumulus, stratus, and cirrus. Using  hand-motions , we would stretch out our hands as far out as we could to mimic a stratus cloud. There are stratus-type clouds at all three basic altitude levels. These are: stratus clouds (low level), altostratus clouds (mid level), and cirrostratus clouds (high level). When stratus-type clouds are present, your skies will most likely be overcast or the cloud cover is 90% or more. Note, there is a ...


Posted in: Curriculum: SCIENCE AND MATH STEM   GLOBE Science Topics: GENERAL SCIENCE GLOBE PROTOCOLS   Investigation Areas: ATMOSPHERE EARTH AS A SYSTEM   Primary Audience: ALUMNI COUNTRY COORDINATORS PARTNERS STUDENTS TEACHERS TRAINERS


Have you ever wondered how NASA develops accurate models of the earth's surface from space? How do we know the topography of the planet, the behavior of the water cycle, or the changes to sea level?  My experience with the NASA SEES Earth System Explorers virtual internship this summer gave me a glimpse into the process of how such data is collected, analyzed, and ultimately presented: remote sensing. The internship allowed me to empirically learn about the world around me through a combination of coursework, literature review, hands-on science, and collaborative research.   In ...


Posted in:


Have you heard there is a new clouds project? It is called NASA GLOBE CLOUD GAZE. It is a merger of GLOBE Clouds and The Zooniverse online citizen science platform. A one-week pacing guide is now available! Sky photographs are one of the most requested portions of a GLOBE Clouds observation. This is because there is so much you can do with them. Photographs give scientists the opportunity to be right there with you. Details within a photograph can be used to compare with satellite data, confirm dust or haze observations, and give insight to unique cloud types like ...


Posted in: Curriculum: SCIENCE AND MATH STEM   GLOBE Science Topics: BACKYARD SCIENCE CLIMATE CLIMATE CHANGE DATA INCLUDED GENERAL SCIENCE GLOBE PROTOCOLS EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE   Investigation Areas: ATMOSPHERE   Learning Activities: ATMOSPHERE AND CLIMATE   News Topics: NEWS BRIEFS   Primary Audience: ALUMNI COUNTRY COORDINATORS PARTNERS SCIENTISTS STUDENTS TEACHERS TRAINERS


After digging through my sea of emails, I remember the thrill I felt when I received my acceptance into the NASA SEES Internship Earth Explorers- Mosquito Mappers. Realizing this would be the first time I experienced a program remotely, my mind raced with questions. What will it be like, being part of a research team?  What if I mess up the registration process? What would research look like? Although I wasn’t sure what to expect of the program, I was eager to discover what experiences and challenges await. The first task was to collect mosquito samples. Never did I expect such a ...


Posted in: Investigation Areas: MOSQUITOES


Background Remote working and remote learning presented challenges to us all. As a Master Trainer in Colombia, Juan Felipe Restrepo Mesa faced and overcame his share of challenges when working with a new group of educators from rural areas.  Most of the training material and the tests that need to be answered were in English. This, of course, means that citizen scientists who do not speak English were prevented from making their contributions living in those areas where GLOBE Observer Mosquito Habitat Mapper's contributions are essential. Juan Felipe had to set up a MEET ...


Posted in: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION   GLOBE Science Topics: EARTH AS A SYSTEM EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE   Investigation Areas: HYDROSPHERE LAND COVER CLASSIFICATION MOSQUITOES   Primary Audience: COUNTRY COORDINATORS PARTNERS SCIENTISTS TEACHERS TRAINERS