06 August 2004

GLOBE means student/citizen science

Forrest M. Mims III

Recently several citizen scientists have asked advice about scientific observations they can pursue.

The same question comes up every fall, when students begin doing the science fair projects they should have started in the summer.

Among the best sources for research projects is freely available to anyone at www.globe.gov.

GLOBE is a worldwide, hands-on, primary and secondary school education and science program. The program was originally designed for students, but the measurement protocols, which have been designed by professional scientists, are well suited for anyone.

GLOBE has completed 10 years of student research, and many millions of individual observations have been sent to the GLOBE web site.

At the recent GLOBE conference in Boulder, Colorado, attendees were very friendly toward the idea of citizen scientists conducting GLOBE observations. That's because GLOBE students are actually citizen scientists themselves.

Now that many GLOBE protocols have become well established, this is a good time for serious citizen scientists to make regular observations under one or more GLOBE protocols.The protocols range from standard meteorological things, like maximum and minimum temperature and precipitation, to keeping track of hummingbirds.

For more information about GLOBE and the GLOBE protocols, see the news items in this issue of The Citizen Scientist.

Now that GLOBE is beginning its second decade, I encourage you to have a look at the GLOBE web site and consider taking on one or more measurement protocols. Do this for a few years, and you just might make a discovery. You might also have something worth submitting to the The Citizen Scientist.