GLOBE educators have many reasons for using GLOBE in their own classrooms already. For the composite video below, four very different educators were asked to describe why they do GLOBE, specifically, they were asked: 1) Why do you like GLOBE? 2) How have your students benefited from collecting GLOBE data? and 3) Do you have any tips for teachers planning on implementing GLOBE in their classrooms for the first time?

Below the video is a story that a GLOBE teacher told about her experience.

Take a look at the video and the written story, and write down anything that jumps out at you, motivates, or excites you, or that you could use in your own educational context. There are journal prompts below to help you capture your reflections.

Going Deeper: One More Teacher's Story

In New York, our students often experience the extreme heat right throughout the entire day from the moment they step outside, to waiting on the subway train platforms, and walking home in the peak heat in the mid-afternoon. Usually during the warmer months, we start to see in the news and on social media about the days breaking heat records. It was often on these days that my students would ask me questions. I would ask them about what they experienced or saw that made them want to talk about it. Often it was something they saw online. When they brought these topics up, I would have them first show me the source they were referring to. We would read through and see if the article or story cited any resources and what the cited resources were. This was a great segue to teaching students about evidence and using authentic resources to gather evidence. It was incredibly important to show these students how to find reliable resources with peer reviewed studies to support or debunk what they were seeing in their social media feeds.

At this point, I would engage students in conducting the research themselves to see how Urban Heat Island (UHI) impacted their neighborhood. I was fortunate to have a mobile thermal camera in my classroom. I would have students walk around the campus with the thermal camera and look at items they interact with everyday to get a sense of how we use these instruments to understand our environment. Once they had a good grasp on it, we would go outside to the open courtyard outside our building (an outdoor common area in Downtown Brooklyn). You could see that when they had the camera outside, it started to make sense. They would see the high temperatures of the concrete sidewalks and the small areas of grass and how drastic the difference was in the temperatures between the two areas. This was the final click to have them understand what exactly UHI is and how much it truly affects our everyday life. They would get readings of 120 F or higher of the ground they walk on every day. It made sense to them why it felt so hot even though the air temperature may be 80 F.

When we would go back inside after our investigation, I would direct them often to sites like Worldview to observe and gather data on larger areas (NYC vs. surrounding suburbs) to show the temperature differences for that day. We would bring it all the pieces together at that point and compare what they read online, what they felt and saw outside, and what they found in authentic research. Not only did they understand what was happening in their neighborhoods, they would often want to explore more and figure out ways to combat UHI. All I did was guide the students on their journey, they were the ones that did the research and exploration. Usually the days after these investigations, the students would come back to me and tell me how they talked about what they learned and did in class and had conversations with their parents about UHI. It was great to see not only their excitement in becoming scientists, but sharing that excitement and knowledge with their peers and family. This excitement would carry on through their other studies in class as we moved on to other topics. The key is to get the students actively involved in their discovery of knowledge right from the start. Let them be the researchers from the first minute.

Elizabeth Sebastian, GLOBE teacher

✍🏽 Journal

Go to your journal (in the Navigation Bar) and jot down a few ideas about things that jumped out of the video or story. We've shared a few questions for your consideration to help get you thinking.

What about these teachers' experiences motivates you or excites you to use GLOBE?
What is one thing you can bring back to your own teaching context?
How will this benefit you and your students?