5396 Views (as of 05/2023)
  1. Sara Mierzwiak
  2. https://www.globe.gov/web/sunshamine/home
  3. Research Assistant
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. University of Toledo Ohio, GLOBE Mission EARTH
  1. Kevin Czajkowski
  2. https://www.utoledo.edu/llss/geography/facultystaff/deptfaculty/czajkowski.html
  3. Professor
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS

GLOBE Mission EARTH

NNX16AC54A

2020 (see original presentation & discussion)

Grades K-6, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Undergraduate, Graduate, Adult learners, Informal / multi-age

GLOBE Mission EARTH (GME) inspires future STEM professionals! In year 4 of our 5-year grant, we have shown that through participation in GME, students of all ages show increased interest in STEM careers. In addition, they have shown improved spatial skills, attitudes towards science, and overall understanding of science and engineering practices. Through hands-on science activities via the GLOBE Program (www.globe.gov), students participating in GME get experience collecting real-world data and conducting genuine scientific research. They then share their results in local, regional, international and virtual symposia. Through this process, students gain valuable experience as future STEM professionals. The result is that GME students show increased student agency, global awareness, "21st century" skills, and college and career readiness! 

GLOBE Mission EARTH is a collaborative of multiple institutions across the United States formed to improve STEM education in disadvantaged student populations (in both urban and rural settings) by encouraging participation in the NASA-funded worldwide environmental monitoring network called the GLOBE Program. Through participation in GLOBE, students and citizen scientists collect data from their local environments and submit that data to an online GIS database, where it is accessible by participants and NASA scientists. The data provide important ground-truthing information and help NASA scientists corroborate satellite monitoring of our planet. Participants in GLOBE are afforded real-world experiences in science and help to contribute to the shared understanding of our global environment. GLOBE Mission EARTH is funded by NASA Cooperative Agreement Notice (CAN) #: NNX16AC54A.

 

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Discussion from the 2020 STEM For All Video Showcase (35 posts)
  • Icon for: Sara Mierzwiak

    Sara Mierzwiak

    Lead Presenter
    Research Assistant
    May 4, 2020 | 05:31 p.m.

    Hello and thank you for viewing our video!

    My name is Sara Mierzwiak, I am a Research Assistant with GLOBE Mission EARTH and the media editor. I hope you enjoy this brief look at a handful of the MANY K-college students that GLOBE Mission EARTH has been proud to inspire in the last four years. In our 5-year NASA grant, we have worked with schools from coast to coast in the United States, getting teachers and their students interested in STEM by involving them in the GLOBE Program (www.globe.gov). Through GLOBE, students get hands-on experience in REAL scientific research, and help to contribute to our understanding of our global environment. As part of their work with GLOBE Mission EARTH, students are also exposed to a wide variety of materials and resources developed by NASA, helping them to make those local-to-global connections. We hope to continue this work far into the future with a renewal, and look forward to helping to contribute to our nation's future STEM professionals! 

    If you have questions about GLOBE Mission EARTH or the GLOBE Program in general, please don't hesitate to ask!

    Sara Mierzwiak

    Research Assistant

    GLOBE  Mission EARTH

    www.globe.gov/web/mission-earth

     

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Olawale Oluwafemi
    Marcy Seavey
    Janelle Johnson
    Leigh Peake
  • John Tiller

    Higher Ed Administrator
    May 6, 2020 | 07:45 p.m.

    Awesome work and many hours of research. This work mirrors what the medical community calls "bench to practice." In other words, the academics are applied in real world scenarios.

  • Icon for: Kevin Czajkowski

    Kevin Czajkowski

    Co-Presenter
    Professor
    May 4, 2020 | 08:07 p.m.

    Sara did a great job of putting this video together. Our NASA funded project is in its fifth year and we are now seeing what the students are doing. We hope that the students we work with continue to have success. 

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Marcy Seavey
    Janelle Johnson
  • Annabel Czajkowski

    May 11, 2020 | 02:02 p.m.

    This is a great program . Students learn by doing!

  • Icon for: Jeffrey Ram

    Jeffrey Ram

    Researcher
    May 5, 2020 | 01:02 a.m.

    We always find the teachers in these activities animated by in-the-field participation.  Frustratingly, central administration of their curriculum in their schools makes it difficult to adopt many of their new experiences into their classrooms.  But they do come away re-enthused in their STEM interests [our program is for fifth grade teachers].  How much can the teachers carry what they've learned back into their classrooms?

  • Icon for: Kevin Czajkowski

    Kevin Czajkowski

    Co-Presenter
    Professor
    May 5, 2020 | 02:31 p.m.

    It varies. It all depends on the teacher. We try to have them start slow and help them stick with it. Unfortunately, some teachers try to do too much the first year and burn out. We've found that helping teachers over barriers is key to keeping them engaged over more than one year. To give the final answer to your question, some teachers we work with have completely changed their teaching to project based where the GLOBE/NASA project is only one of many they do with their students.

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Marcy Seavey
    Holly Morin
  • Icon for: Marcy Seavey

    Marcy Seavey

    May 12, 2020 | 09:22 a.m.

    I also found first year burn out was difficult to avoid for some teachers too.  They would get so excited that they would want to integrate GLOBE into several classes or take on multiple protocols over many units no matter how many times we would say "pick one thing we've done this week and implement it".  Once we were able to use Title II funding to work with the teachers for an entire year, that helped a lot because the teachers and trainers would interact together every month.  Teachers who planned too much at once would see their peers getting more results from doing less and then together we could coach them into scaling back on their original plans during that first year. 

    We also would bring in long time Iowa GLOBE teachers to share their experiences and answer questions about what worked and what didn't work for them.  It seemed to be helpful for teachers to hear from their peers about building up programs over time.  I had a couple teachers who would do a different GLOBE project almost every year (Orange Elementary) and a couple who implemented the same project for 5-10 years in a row (MFL Mar-Mac 2nd grade).  Both options work as long as you don't try to do more than you and your students can handle at once.

    One of the newest strategies I have added to my workshops is assigning all educator participants 2 or 3 of the GLOBE Student Research Reports to read and reflect upon.  This started as a way to encouraging using Student Reports as a way to read science and technical subjects.  However, reading the teacher reflections, I feel like it helps teachers connect more deeply to how GLOBE engages students in the practices of science.  Usually they are both impressed by the projects that GLOBE students accomplish and can identify ways the students could improve their projects if they were to do them again.  I've assigned a lot of the Mission EARTH student reports to my teachers!

  • Icon for: Leigh Peake

    Leigh Peake

    Informal Educator
    May 5, 2020 | 11:42 a.m.

    Thanks for the great video. I really loved seeing the trajectory of what makes great student work happen -- starting with great, "do-able" GLOBE protocols, to having teachers do and report on the science, back to the classroom, and eventually to the regional symposium. I'm curious what you find is the most challenging piece for teachers? We find many science teachers don't feel equipped to handle the misdirections, misconceptions and misunderstandings that come up during data analysis. I wonder if you likewise find that and what approaches you use for that part of teachers' experience in particular?

  • Icon for: Kevin Czajkowski

    Kevin Czajkowski

    Co-Presenter
    Professor
    May 5, 2020 | 05:13 p.m.

    We find that the biggest barrier our teachers have is confidence in their own ability to offer project-based learning to their students. So, I would say that happens way before they get to the data analysis point.

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Holly Morin
  • Icon for: Stephen Alkins

    Stephen Alkins

    Facilitator
    Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer
    May 5, 2020 | 11:46 a.m.

    Hey Sara and Kevin,

    Great project!  As a scientist myself who has judged posters from elementary to graduate-level work, I think this is especially necessary to train facilitators and teachers not only on a variety of STEM topics, but also on the fundamental tenants of good scientific presentations.  To that end, I have a couple of inquiries:

    • The anecdotal stories of students in colleges and universities are great.  Were you or the teachers able to provide any data on whether or not the presentations improved students' overall interests in STEM, performance in other types of classroom STEM assessments, or critical thinking?
    • Did you recruit any students or teachers that came from indigenous populations?  If so, what was your experience merging indigenous cultural practices of science with western traditions?
    • What kind of training do the did teachers receive on how to support students devising their own research questions (i.e. creating relevant and testable questions)?

         Thank you again for the cool video! 

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Michael I. Swart
    Marcy Seavey
  • Icon for: Kevin Czajkowski

    Kevin Czajkowski

    Co-Presenter
    Professor
    May 5, 2020 | 05:22 p.m.
    • The anecdotal stories of students in colleges and universities are great.  Were you or the teachers able to provide any data on whether or not the presentations improved students' overall interests in STEM, performance in other types of classroom STEM assessments, or critical thinking?  We have survey results that show that students' interest in science did improve. We did not look at other types of assessments or critical thinking. 
    • Did you recruit any students or teachers that came from indigenous populations?  If so, what was your experience merging indigenous cultural practices of science with western traditions? Our partner at WestEd is working with students in New Mexico some who are Native American. I don't have an answer for this question as I don't know exactly how the work with the teachers and students was conducted. That would be good for me to find out. 
    • What kind of training do the did teachers receive on how to support students devising their own research questions (i.e. creating relevant and testable questions)?  We focused a lot on this. During PD, we have teachers conduct their own research project so they have an idea of what students need to do to complete a project. We have them focus on projects they think their students can do and that would be relevant to the students. We often guide the teachers to think about questions that are easily testable and doable in the time constraints they have.
     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Michael I. Swart
    Stephen Alkins Ph.D.
  • Icon for: Marcy Seavey

    Marcy Seavey

    May 12, 2020 | 09:29 a.m.

    One non-GLOBE resource that we bring into Iowa workshops is the free Field Investigations: Using Outdoor Environments to Foster Student Learning of Scientific Practices.  This guide is about how to lead field investigations about descriptive, comparative, and correlative questions.  I use the questions activity or a modified version of it in almost every workshop now.  We go back to this when the teachers read and reflect on GLOBE Student Research reports.  They must identify the questions addressed in the report and if they are descriptive, comparative, correlative or something else.  They must also identify if the data collected and it's analysis is appropriate/consistent for the question type asked.

     

    Here is a link to the free download:

    https://pacificeducationinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Field-Investigations-Practices_Guide_FINAL.pdf

  • Icon for: Marcy Seavey

    Marcy Seavey

    May 5, 2020 | 01:43 p.m.

    Hi Mission Earth Team,

    I wanted to share that after hosting the Midwest SRS in spring 2019, we used the peer review resources to help prepare our Army Education & Outreach Program (AEOP) Research and Engineering Apprentice (REAP) apprentices to present their posters along side our undergraduate researchers last summer.  I think it helped them re-frame this experience from "I will be judged" to "I will learn and help others learn".

     

    -Marcy Seavey, STEM Coordinator, University of Northern Iowa

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Jennifer Bourgeault
  • Icon for: Jennifer Bourgeault

    Jennifer Bourgeault

    United States GLOBE Country Coordinator
    May 6, 2020 | 06:03 p.m.

    Hi Marcy! This is wonderful to hear. We created a YouTube video for the peer review process since it will be virtual this year. It is geared toward this year only but you might find it helpful in your future work.

     
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    Marcy Seavey
  • Icon for: Marcy Seavey

    Marcy Seavey

    May 12, 2020 | 09:31 a.m.

    Awesome, thanks!

  • Icon for: Kevin Czajkowski

    Kevin Czajkowski

    Co-Presenter
    Professor
    May 5, 2020 | 02:28 p.m.

    That's a great connection. I like what you are saying about getting away from students being judged to them learning from others. It is much more collaborative.

  • Yitong Jiang

    Researcher
    May 5, 2020 | 02:28 p.m.

    Nice video! It is good to see many students are benefited from the GLOBE Mission Earth. 

  • Icon for: Bradley Allf

    Bradley Allf

    Graduate Student
    May 5, 2020 | 03:07 p.m.

    I really enjoyed your video, Mission EARTH team! I especially enjoyed getting to hear a bit from some student participants that have gone on to pursue their science interests in college. I was wondering whether you are doing any kind of formal follow-ups with past participants like these to assess the impact of the program on how the participants learned from, or were affected by, their experience with the GLOBE program?

  • Icon for: Kevin Czajkowski

    Kevin Czajkowski

    Co-Presenter
    Professor
    May 5, 2020 | 05:10 p.m.

    No, we don't have an organized plan to follow participants  on what they do. 

  • Icon for: Lindsey Mohan

    Lindsey Mohan

    Researcher
    May 6, 2020 | 08:53 a.m.

    The GLOBE program offers a fantastic experience for students, particularly if the students engage in the research symposium. I'm wondering how you encourage and support teachers and students to collect high-quality data over the long-term? What have you learned from the teachers and students who stick with it, versus teachers and students who engage in the short-term or as a "one-off" experience?

  • Icon for: Kevin Czajkowski

    Kevin Czajkowski

    Co-Presenter
    Professor
    May 7, 2020 | 10:38 a.m.

    I think teachers stick with it when they see the impact it makes on students' lives. When students take ownership of their project, they are more likely to want to continue.

  • Icon for: Marcy Seavey

    Marcy Seavey

    May 12, 2020 | 09:36 a.m.

    Kevin, have you learned anything new about how to maintain a GLOBE Program as the "active" GLOBE teacher retires or transitions to a new position building?  It seems like this is still a barrier to long term reliable data collection.  The "key teacher" leaves the school and the program is suddenly gone.

  • Icon for: Feng Liu

    Feng Liu

    Facilitator
    Senior Researcher
    May 6, 2020 | 12:01 p.m.

    Thanks for sharing this great project! I really like the idea of students learning by doing and having students involved with the scientific investigation process from data collection, analysis to results dissemination. Could you share more information about the following aspects of this project?

    • Based on the description, “GME students show increased student agency, global awareness, "21st century" skills, and college and career readiness”, I assume some sort of program evaluation was conducted. Do you have a control group in the evaluation, and if so, how is the control group identified?
    • It seems a student survey instrument was used to measure student interest in science as one construct during the evaluation. Does the survey also measure the other constructs: “21st century" skills, and college and career readiness? How was the reliability and validity of these scale instruments?
    • Other than the non-academic outcomes mentioned above, are you also looking at student academic outcomes? These may include, but not limited to, student performance in state standardized tests, GPA, or some sort of end-of-course tests.
     
    2
    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Marcy Seavey
    Michael I. Swart
  • Icon for: Kevin Czajkowski

    Kevin Czajkowski

    Co-Presenter
    Professor
    May 7, 2020 | 10:43 a.m.

    We did not have a control group for the evaluation. We many performed pre and post surveys. The one survey is on student attitudes. We use one validated instrument on spatial abilities from the American Association of Geographers. We have a team of evaluators that work on the evaluation. I'm not one of them so I don't know all of the details. We have not looked at student test scores. In one of my previous projects, we did and found it very, very difficult to distinguish the impact from project.

     
    1
    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Marcy Seavey
  • Icon for: Feng Liu

    Feng Liu

    Facilitator
    Senior Researcher
    May 8, 2020 | 06:53 p.m.

    Thanks for the clarification, Kevin!

  • Icon for: John Moore

    John Moore

    Executive Director
    May 6, 2020 | 03:13 p.m.

    Sarah, what a great job in capturing the "mission" of GME. Thank you sharing the smiling faces of students as they walk through the process of conducting authentic research, many for the first time. For me, the "evidence" of the impact on student's lives is the obvious sense of accomplishment from the photos. Having been at some of these events myself, I am confident that we are changing student's lives! Thank you for your numerous contributions to GME!

  • Icon for: Wendy Smith

    Wendy Smith

    Facilitator
    Research Professor
    May 6, 2020 | 08:17 p.m.

    Thanks for sharing the GLOBE project. One of the things I've seen is that students (and teachers) often need significant support in effectively communicating their science research. Is a focus on communicating science part of the professional development you have for teachers?

  • Icon for: Kevin Czajkowski

    Kevin Czajkowski

    Co-Presenter
    Professor
    May 7, 2020 | 10:48 a.m.

    We don't specifically focus on communication. In the PD we have the teachers develop their own research project that would be similar to the grade level and interests of their students. Then, we have scientists come and review their projects. I'm sure through that process the teachers learn how to communicate their science better. The symposia we have are poster style similar to those at AGU. TOne of the reasons we went with poster sessions originally was to give the students opportunities to present their work many times to many people. I can see students relax and gain confidence as the poster session goes on. 

     
    1
    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Marcy Seavey
  • Evangeline Stefanakis

    Researcher
    May 11, 2020 | 10:48 a.m.

    As we see what students from many worlds find from GLOBE it offers us hope for tomorrow's leaders in STEM work and in preserving our vital environment.

    Super work and a wonderful message for all diverse populations to learn from.

    Thanks so

     

  • LIsa Dallas

    May 11, 2020 | 11:02 a.m.

    Thank you, Mission Earth!  Well done!

  • LIsa Dallas

    May 11, 2020 | 11:02 a.m.

    Thank you, Mission Earth!  Well done!

  • Icon for: Michael I. Swart

    Michael I. Swart

    Researcher
    May 11, 2020 | 01:38 p.m.

    What a great opportunity for contextualized Science learning in a collaborative environment for both students and teachers.  Everyone seems very engaged.  Is there a theoretical framework for this project? If so, could you expound a little bit on that?

    Also, with such great projects that implement a number of different scientific skills, seems like there are lots of constructs that could be leveraged in this work (i.e., scientific argumentation, variable isolation, complex systems, logic, spatial skills), including metrics to track them pre to post.  Check out this resource (https://www.silc.northwestern.edu/) for getting granular with the components of spatial thinking and how this program can enhance it!  Thanks for sharing.

  • Icon for: Barbara Rogoff

    Barbara Rogoff

    Researcher
    May 12, 2020 | 01:16 a.m.

    Congratulations on this work!  Our world needs it!

  • Icon for: Olawale Oluwafemi

    Olawale Oluwafemi

    Graduate Student
    May 12, 2020 | 11:00 a.m.

    This is amazing Sara. I am proud to be associated with GLOBE Earth Mission.

  • Icon for: Olawale Oluwafemi

    Olawale Oluwafemi

    Graduate Student
    May 12, 2020 | 11:01 a.m.

    This is amazing Sara. I am proud to be associated with GLOBE Mission Earth. Looks great.

  • Further posting is closed as the event has ended.