News - Mission Earth
Kids Club Offered for Another Year (2022)
In Spring, 2022, GME-UT partnered with NASA LaRC for the second year of “NASA GLOBE Kids Club”, to work directly with children and their parents, thus bypassing teachers. The pilot “Kids Club” was implemented as an after-school enrichment program last year. This collaborative effort is led by Sara Mierzwiak, Dr. Evangeline Harris Stefanakis, and Jessica Taylor (NASA Langley). Brian Campbell (Wallops NASA Center) was the invited speaker for the last session.
GME-UT led the efforts of Kids Club via weekly half hour virtual interactive sessions with students in Grades 3-5. Over 20 students participated on Wednesday afternoons for the past 6 weeks. Between meetings, students were to go outside and conduct environmental observational activities with their families and friends. These were to be done outside of their normal school hours and in their backyards or neighborhood parks. Data collected included: clouds observations and budburst/green down of branches and trees in their areas. During the virtual meetings, students shared photos and drawings of their observations. GME staff presented supplementary scientific information, graphics and animations to aid students in deeper learning about their observations.
Student results were impressive, with many observations and drawings resulting. Students were also very engaged during each session and curious to watch the animations, movies and graphics presented to them. Images of their work were shared in a shared Google album for all to see.