Education Highlihgts
In response to NASA Research Announcement-96-MTPE-07, the Aspen Global Change Institute (AGCI) developed the Pre- and In-Service Earth Science Training Opportunity--PESTO (NAG5-6072). PESTO was designed to coincide with AGCI's ongoing program of interdisciplinary science meetings for the research community that it holds each summer on topics in global environmental change. Twenty-four pre- and in-service teachers from across the country assembled for the week-long workshop in August. By having the two programs concurrently, the PESTO students were able to benefit from guest discussions and presentations from AGCI's science program. Guests included Stephen Schneider from Stanford University, Amory Lovins from the Rocky Mountain Institute, and Cheri Morrow from the Space Science Institute in Boulder.
The workshop faculty consisted of Richard C. J. Somerville, Professor of Meteorology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the University of California, San Diego, and Milton McClaren, former Dean of the Division of Continuing Education and currently Director of Field Relations and Teacher In-service Education for Simon Fraser University, British Columbia. The hands-on workshop utilized a variety of NASA educational materials, AGCI's Ground Truth Studies Teacher Handbook, and, as a pre-workshop reading, Dr. Somerville's new book, "The Forgiving Air." Graduate and undergraduate credits were available to the students.
AGCI was excited by full enrollment, the cooperation of partnering organizations, and the highly-positive evaluation comments from the participants for PESTO's first year. If you are interested in PESTO for the summer of 1998 or would like additional information, please contact John Katzenberger at the Aspen Global Change Institute, 100 East Francis, Aspen, Colorado 81611. Email: agcimail@agci.org.
Twenty Earth and environmental science teachers from the GSFC Maryland Ambassador Program will continue the work begun in 1997 to develop Internet-based Earth system science instructional activities that incorporate NASA data. Selected ambassadors will expand the repository with a new set of investigations to be developed in a July 1998 workshop. Their focus will be on developing investigations to incorporate data available via the EOS platform to be launched in 1998. This project will be conducted in partnership with the GSFC Education Office, NASA Headquarters Code FE, Mission to Planet Earth Education Office, the Maryland State Department of Education, and twenty local Maryland School Systems.
The project goals are to:
For information contact:
Stephen Gilligan, Principal Investigator, charles1@mail.ameritel.net Vern Smith, Co-Investigator, vern@aesp.nasa.okstate.gov
Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE)
There are now 58 countries participating in GLOBE, and over 2000 schools from around the world having reported data.
Growth in GLOBE is projected to accelerate in the coming two years. Through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), GLOBE has competitively selected 8 sites across the country and awarded them contracts to host a total of 40 GLOBE Teacher Training Workshops starting this October and continuing through summer 1999. In addition, during this period an estimated 130 workshops will be held by U.S. GLOBE franchises along with over 150 international workshops. Based on typical attendance levels at GLOBE teacher workshops, an additional 9000 teachers will become involved in this program through these workshops. This will approximately triple the number of teachers involved.
GLOBE has reevaluated the way in which it counts observations. At present, in many cases, sets of data involving many student observations are counted as a single measurement report. A new accounting of measurements, which more-accurately reflects the extent of the GLOBE data and student efforts, will be released shortly. It is anticipated that with this more-accurate count, there are already more than 2 million GLOBE student measurements.
The on-going El Niño offers a significant opportunity for GLOBE schools to contribute to contemporary scientific research. Most effects of El Niño in the northern temperate zone are predicted to occur from November to March. GLOBE schools are being told of the role they can play as students by measuring daily air temperature ranges, precipitation amounts, and other parameters. These measurements should reveal the quantitative extent of El Niño effects for the area around each GLOBE school and augment data from other sources. Visualizations of El Niño-related data will be provided via the GLOBE Web Site. What follows is a brief message that is being posted on the Web introducing this activity:
"El Niño is a major shift in the ocean-atmosphere system in the tropical Pacific which has important consequences for weather in many regions around the world. In contrast to the seasonal cycle, which is fairly regular and therefore highly predictable, El Niño events occur at irregular intervals, generally ranging from two to seven years. No two events are alike, and in the early 1990s, El Niño conditions prevailed for four out of five years.
GLOBE students can help scientists learn more about El Niño events by consistently reporting GLOBE measurements. Air temperature, rain, solid precipitation, soil moisture, and quantitative land biology measurements from GLOBE schools will provide direct observations of the changes in temperature and precipitation which are predicted to occur in various regions at different times. The other GLOBE measurements may reveal secondary effects of El Niño-induced changes and help scientists determine the full effects on our environment.
GLOBE will provide schools with a world map showing the changes expected in different regions now and in the coming months. This prediction will be based on the observed effects of past El Niño events and will serve as a hypothesis which we can test with our GLOBE measurements. As the data come in, GLOBE will provide periodic assessments of what they are showing about this event. Seven or eight months from now, if schools are very active in taking data, GLOBE student measurements will have revealed much about the effects of this El Niño.
Throughout the year, GLOBE will feature special learning activities and visualizations to facilitate classroom study of El Niño and to encourage GLOBE schools to engage in their own investigations of this phenomenon and its history. The El Niño has begun, so watch for more information from GLOBE and get going or keep going on taking and reporting GLOBE data."
El Niño Web Site: http://nsipp.gsfc.nasa.gov/enso Guide to U.S. Department of Education Programs & Resources: http://web99.ed.gov/GTEP/Program2.nsf Learning Technologies Channel: http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/ltc/