Fairmont State University awarded GLOBE grant for science education

Fairmont State University has received $4,980 in grant funding from the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program, an international science and education program focused on teaching and learning Earth System Science.

This grant supports Going Global in WV with GLOBE, a project led by the Katherine Johnson NASA Independent Verification and Validation Education Resource Center (NASA IV&V ERC) in partnership with Fairmont State. The project’s purpose is to initiate a GLOBE: Atmosphere Focus Group (AFG) to provide West Virginia science educators with training on GLOBE’s Atmosphere protocols and access to loanable classroom kits to implement with their schools’ science fairs.

NASA’s IV&V ERC has established the AFG and has begun training West Virginia STEM educators, who will each submit two student projects to both their local science fairs and the GLOBE International Virtual Science Symposium (IVSS). After these educators have coached their students’ GLOBE science projects, facilitated their schools’ science fairs, and assisted students who advance to regional science fairs and IVSS, the AFG will continue to meet about ways to engage with GLOBE in the future.

Joshua Revels, Fairmont State’s Education Outreach Specialist at NASA IV&V ERC, developed the project proposal and leads its implementation. “I'm happy to see WV students utilizing NASA equipment to conduct the GLOBE data collection procedures,” stated Revels. “Not only are they designing community-driven research to submit to their school science fairs, but they also are contributing to a global database of atmospheric data that scientists can use for research.”

The GLOBE Program was developed by six US federal agencies, including NASA and the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, and was launched on Earth Day in 1995. It has since grown into a larger international network of educators, STEM professionals, and citizen scientists. The US-based GLOBE Implementation Office supports the international GLOBE community and provided the funding for this project.

Revels states, “Our WV students are authentic scientists collaborating with other citizen scientists and students across the globe.”