1. 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

2. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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 Teacher’s 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.

9. Exploring the Local The students in Mr. Wizard’s 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.

10. Prediction

11. 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.

12. GLOBE Visualization

13. 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).

14. Local Graph using Excel

15. 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. Wizard’s class

19. 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

23. Other Collaboration Mechanisms Student Collaborations feature of web site Educators Corner Mr. Wizard’s 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

24. Publication A vital step in the research process At the end of their unit on water chemistry, Mr. Wizard’s 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. Wizard’s 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

26. 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