THE GLOBE WEB SITE AS A TOOL FOR EDUCATION AND STUDENT RESEARCH David H. Brown GLOBE Chief Technologist e-LSEE Conference Tartu, Estonia October 3, 2003

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THE GLOBE WEB SITE AS A TOOL FOR EDUCATION AND
STUDENT RESEARCHDavid H. BrownGLOBE Chief
Technologiste-LSEE ConferenceTartu,
EstoniaOctober 3, 2003
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History

• Modest early efforts
• Not much student data for use in school projects
• No clear vision on how data might be used
• Few tools for accessing data

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GLOBE Education Goals

• Hands-on measurements
• Measurement related learning activities
• Growing focus on analysis of data and use of data
  in student research and inquiry
• Analysis and use of GLOBE data is a strong
  motivator of data collection

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Student Research Tools

• Data Access
• Maps and Graphs
• Raw Data (Tabular, Excel Ready, .shape Files)
• Collaboration
• School Search and School Contact Info (from lots
  of places)
• GLOBEMail
• School Collaboration
• Educator's Corner
• Publications and Examples/Ideas for student
  research
• Student Journal
• Background Materials
• Teacher's Guide - Print and CD-ROM
• Scientist's Corner
• Resource Room

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An Illustrative Example

• This hypothetical example shows how a class could
  use the GLOBE web site to conceive and execute a
  student research project
• After reviewing the Implementation section of the
  GLOBE Teachers Guide, our imaginary teacher, Mr.
  Wizard, decides to use the GLOBE protocols and
  database to help his students better understand
  the hydrology measurements they are taking in
  their stream.

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Exploring the Local

• The students in Mr. Wizards science class have
  been collecting hydrology measurements on weekly
  basis for several years.
• The new students this year have studied the
  meaning of the hydrology measurements and the
  factors that influence these measurements.
• The students have been to the study site to take
  the measurements.
• The teacher asks the students to make a
  hypothesis about what they think one years worth
  of data alkalinity will look like.

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Prediction
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Comparing to Historical Record

• Once the students have made their predictions,
  the teacher asks the students to share them with
  the class and they talk about what reasoning they
  used to develop their predictions.
• Then the students go to the GLOBE database and
  compare the data collected by that school with
  their prediction.

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GLOBE Visualization
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Data Download

• Students can download GLOBE data for local
  analysis
• Download in ascii (text) format can be directly
  imported by Excel or other spreadsheet or
  analysis software
• Download of spatial (map) data in .shape file
  format can be downloaded directly into ESRI GIS
  packages (ARCView, ARCInfo, ARCVoyager, etc).

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Local Graph using Excel
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Exploring the Region

• Make a map of California showing all schools that
  have reported alkalinity data
• Select school another school with many
  measurements
• Graph their data and compare to Mr. Wizards class

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Exploring the Globe

• Global Search for other schools with lots of
  alkalinity data
• Mr. Wizard does a data access search for schools
  with alkalinity values between 40 and 100 mg/L
  CaCO3
• The students discover good schools with lots of
  data in Poland and Germany
• They plot and compare data
• They use the contact information to follow up
  with Polish school

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Other Collaboration Mechanisms

• Student Collaborations feature of web site
• Educators Corner
• Mr. Wizards students exchange e-mails with the
  GLOBE hydrology PI Dr. Martha Conklin. She helps
  them understand their measurements and suggests
  additional places to look for more information.
• The school involves the Community in their
  project
• Parents
• Local Experts
• Universities
• Nation government agencies (Forest Service, EPA,
  etc)
• Local agencies (water, agriculture, planning,
  etc)
• Local Government and civic groups

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Publication

• A vital step in the research process
• At the end of their unit on water chemistry, Mr.
  Wizards students co-author a paper with the
  students from XI Liceum St. Konarskiego on what
  they have learned about the chemistry of Elk
  Creek and Opatowicki River
• Mr. Wizards shares their project with the local
  media (TV and newspaper) and makes a presentation
  to monthly town meeting
• The two schools jointly publish their paper in
  the GLOBE Student Investigations Journal
• Sharing results and ideas spurs future projects

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Looking to the Future

• It is a challenge to produce classroom ready
  projects that are relevant and applicable across
  the entire GLOBE community
• We have tried to provide the raw materials and
  tools for the successful creation of e-Learning
  projects
• We need to capture the results of projects like
  eLSEE and other partner and individual teacher
  e-Learning developments
• We are also looking to realize benefits of
  information technology enhanced learning through
• Better design and organization of the GLOBE
  website
• More modeling of classroom data use in training
• GIS and other geo-spatial data access and
  analysis tools
• Distance Learning