2787 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
  1. Kevin Czajkowski
  2. https://www.utoledo.edu/llss/geography/facultystaff/deptfaculty/czajkowski.html
  3. Professor
  4. Presenter’s NSFRESOURCECENTERS
  5. University of Toledo, GLOBE Mission Earth

Sara Mierzwiak

NNX16AC54A

2021 (see original presentation & discussion)

All Age Groups

GLOBE Mission EARTH is now in its 6th year of fusing GLOBE (www.globe.gov) and NASA assets into K-college classrooms across the United States. In this video, we highlight our efforts during the time of COVID, including our first hybrid virtual/in-person teacher Professional Development (PD) in the Summer/Fall of 2020: our NOAA/B-WET (Bay Watershed Education and Training) Great Lakes GLOBE PD. Our teachers and students have displayed incredible adaptability in these difficult times, and have developed innovative ways to continue to collect hydrosphere and atmosphere data following GLOBE protocols. For our hybrid PD, we gathered with teachers at local water bodies to collect data in the mornings, and met via videoconference in the afternoons. Highlights of student virtual presentations of research and other teacher activities during the pandemic are included.

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Discussion from the 2021 STEM For All Video Showcase (19 posts)
  • Icon for: Sara Mierzwiak

    Sara Mierzwiak

    Lead Presenter
    Research Assistant
    May 10, 2021 | 02:44 p.m.

    Greetings, my name is Sara Mierzwiak and I am a Research Assistant with GLOBE Mission EARTH and the video editor for this project. I hope you enjoy this video which highlights our GLOBE activities in the time of COVID. Our teachers and students have proven to be amazingly resilient during the past year and have endeavored to continue practicing project-based learning utilizing GLOBE protocols and NASA resources. I hope you enjoy, and look forward to feedback and questions. Please also stop by our website for more information: www.globe.gov/web/mission-earth.

    ~ Sara

     
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    Janelle Johnson
  • Icon for: Chip Bruce

    Chip Bruce

    Facilitator
    Professor Emeritus
    May 11, 2021 | 08:06 a.m.

    Good project! Do you have a sense of how project-based learning has qualitatively changed when done virtually? For example, are certain topics easier or harder? Can learners make connections across topics?

  • Icon for: Sara Mierzwiak

    Sara Mierzwiak

    Lead Presenter
    Research Assistant
    May 11, 2021 | 01:14 p.m.

    Hello Mr. Bruce, thank you for the questions. Oddly, I think that certain topics - particularly spatially-related data and maps - are actually easier to conduct virtually. Sharing a map on your screen and zooming in and out is easy and fun to do. One of my favorite virtual classroom visits I conducted in the past year was working with 8th graders and showing them an interactive 3D topographic map of the Grand Canyon, and how to utilize the measuring tools to assess distances. I was able to show them and then turn them loose to try it themselves. Sharing that kind of exercise worked very well virtually. I think that making connections across topics may be a little more difficult, but would depend on the topics and online resources available. 

  • Icon for: Liz Georgakopoulos

    Liz Georgakopoulos

    Informal Educator
    May 11, 2021 | 09:46 a.m.

    It looks like you provided some great adaptations once COVID hit.  Did you notice a difference in protocols from different states?

     
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    Janelle Johnson
  • Icon for: Sara Mierzwiak

    Sara Mierzwiak

    Lead Presenter
    Research Assistant
    May 11, 2021 | 01:19 p.m.

    Hello Ms. Georgakopoulos, we are currently utilizing ArcGIS Online to map out our teacher/student activities during the past year so I don't have good quantitative data just yet; however, anecdotally I can tell you that our teachers who were able to stay in person with their students (those in private schools, in rural areas, for example), were able to continue with the GLOBE activities and data gathering moreso than our virtual ones. That is to be expected I suppose. The surprising thing to me (and the inspiration behind our video) was the myriad of ways in which our virtual teachers were still able to conduct GLOBE activities with their students despite not being in person. Some of our teachers even went the extra mile and had equipment delivered to their students for use while at home! This surprised us, and it's interesting now looking at the data they collected and analyzing it. As an example, where in the past a school's surface temperature measurements would be clustered on the school's grounds, during COVID, some of them are clearly dispersed throughout the community because the students were at home collecting the same kind of data. Very cool to see!

     
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    Janelle Johnson
  • Icon for: John Moore

    John Moore

    Executive Director
    May 11, 2021 | 10:22 a.m.

    Great presentation of how fluid learning can occur when working collaboratively with a great NASA Mission Earth team that can tackle problems that can unexpectedly appear. Your video is a clear demonstration of how desired working relationships between scientists, educators, and students can take place!  Thanks Sarah for sharing. 

  • Icon for: Sara Mierzwiak

    Sara Mierzwiak

    Lead Presenter
    Research Assistant
    May 11, 2021 | 01:20 p.m.

    Thank you so much, John! As always, our teachers and students continue to inspire and amaze us! I will check out your video, too. Cheers, Sara

  • Icon for: Nancy Staus

    Nancy Staus

    Facilitator
    Senior Researcher, STEM Education
    May 11, 2021 | 11:51 a.m.

    GLOBE has such great potential for reaching wide audiences! Can you speak to your ability to reach groups that have been historically underrepresented? What are your strategies to meet that goal?

     
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    Janelle Johnson
  • Icon for: Sara Mierzwiak

    Sara Mierzwiak

    Lead Presenter
    Research Assistant
    May 12, 2021 | 11:50 a.m.

    Hello Ms. Staus, and thank you for your question. In our original proposal, we designed our work so that we would focus on underrepresented students, so that goal has been with us from the get go. Much of our work has been in inner city urban areas, but also in some rural areas as well. Some of our partners also focus on ESL students, and have been developing materials specific to them. Our group is just one part of a much larger project that extends from coast to coast in the U.S., so we cover a lot of different areas. One strategy we are currently looking at employing to continue our reach is to conduct a spatial demographic analysis of the schools and districts we currently work with, and try to identify additional underrepresented districts to reach out to. That work is currently underway. Hope that helps answer your questions! ~Sara

     
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    Janelle Johnson
  • Icon for: Lin Chambers

    Lin Chambers

    May 11, 2021 | 12:44 p.m.

    Great to see science continue to happen despite the challenges.  Do you have any take-aways from this period that will inform your work post-pandemic?  Any lessons learned that will lead to better things?

     
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    Janelle Johnson
  • Icon for: Sara Mierzwiak

    Sara Mierzwiak

    Lead Presenter
    Research Assistant
    May 11, 2021 | 01:09 p.m.

    Hi Dr. Chambers, great to hear from you. I believe that hosting the majority of our content online so that it's easily accessible to participants asynchronously is a practice we will continue post-pandemic. As an example, I can see us creating google classrooms and google sites for each of our efforts, even if they are held in person. This is something we did in the past, but not necessarily for every event. I can see it being a regular practice now. There are advantages to everyone in doing this, especially from our viewpoints as administrators (record-keeping/sharing media/etc.). On a side note, it's also been great to easily pop into a teacher's classroom virtually to assist with even little things as they need them!

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Janelle Johnson
  • Icon for: Lin Chambers

    Lin Chambers

    May 11, 2021 | 01:24 p.m.

    That last is a great point!  Science help on call.  :-)

  • Icon for: Celena Miller

    Celena Miller

    Senior Program Coordinator
    May 11, 2021 | 09:19 p.m.

    Hi Sara- Great to see the highlights of your GLOBE activities! Thanks for sharing!

     
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    Discussion is closed. Upvoting is no longer available

    Janelle Johnson
  • Icon for: Sara Mierzwiak

    Sara Mierzwiak

    Lead Presenter
    Research Assistant
    May 12, 2021 | 11:45 a.m.

    Thank you Celena, much appreciated!

  • Melody Tsapranis

    K-12 Teacher
    May 17, 2021 | 03:36 p.m.

    Well done! Thank you for reminding us that through creativity, we can make it through tough, unpredictable times!

  • Olawale Oluwafemi

    Graduate Student
    May 17, 2021 | 04:11 p.m.

    Great work Sara. The video demonstrated great synergy between teachers, students and scientists. 

    Femi

  • Icon for: James Callahan

    James Callahan

    Informal Educator
    May 17, 2021 | 05:59 p.m.

    The GLOBE program is simply indispensable!  All these years, you have done such incredible work.

    It is our good fortune to connect with you regularly: in the schools, at STEM events and in the outdoors/nature settings.

    Your colleagues would know us best in the San Francisco Bay Area, and now in Washington and Maryland.  Especially at the large scale science festival events such as the Bay Area Science Festival and US Science Engineering Festival, where the Mobile Climate Science Labs has several booths.

    Plus, of course, the CLEAN collection highlights many of GLOBE's outstanding programs and resources.

    The STEM for All Video Showcase is such a wonderful opportunity to catch up and check in.

    By all means, let's continue to compare notes on how to carry on with live remote and virtual events and communications.  We have developed ways that are very successful, and we're so glad to see you have too!

    Globe is incredible!

  • Cynthia Madanski

    K-12 Teacher
    May 18, 2021 | 11:32 a.m.

    I always appreciate my time with GLOBE and this year was no exception. We certainly had to get creative to bring this experience to our students, and the support of the GLOBE team at the University of Toledo was so appreciated!  Fingers crossed next year we will be back in the river live with kids!

  • Icon for: Margaret Baguio

    Margaret Baguio

    Program Manager
    May 18, 2021 | 11:55 a.m.

    I am interested in the professional development aspect of the project.  We have found that teachers were often reluctant to do anything virtual as they were inundated with their classrooms.  Did you conduct your workshops during the summer?

  • Further posting is closed as the event has ended.