GLOBE Programs

Alaska EPSCoR supports the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program, an international hands-on environmental science and education program that connects K-12 students, teachers and scientists around the world for research collaboration and cross-cultural enrichment. Under the program, teachers receive special training and educational materials for implementing the GLOBE program and teach students how to measure locally and learn globally to increase their understanding of the Earth and its interconnected systems of atmosphere, hydrosphere, geosphere and biosphere.

Primary and secondary school students across Alaska are broadening their knowledge of scientific methods and of seasonal changes around the world through the GLOBE Seasons and Biomes Project, a far-reaching program partially sponsored by Alaska EPSCoR.

Seasons and Biomes is a worldwide educational project in which K-12 students discuss climate change and learn about scientific inquiry through their observations of the seasons. Activities have included an international videoconference and Web forum; professional teacher development workshops; and class and individual investigations into plant and ice phenology and other climatic topics by K-12 students across Alaska and the world. GLOBE teachers and students have developed protocols for measuring climate change through phenomena such as times of river freeze-up and break-up, permafrost measurements taken through frost tubes, and mosquito observations and statistics. More than 4,000 students, teachers and scientists from 42 countries have participated in the program.

Highlights of a pair of individual GLOBE efforts can be found here. The first details a teleconference between students in Alaska and Argentina, the second a journey to Thailand to establish a protocol for measuring seasonal change through mosquito hatches.