GLOBE India, GLOBE Program in India - A Complete Learning Educationally Meaningful Program for the purpose of generating knowledge about the environment. Maintained by JITENDRA KUMAR (jitendra1202@gmail.com)

Teacher's Corner

Impact of GLOBE programme activities on teaching practices

	The GLOBE program has improved teacher's science literacy, scientific inquiry skills and their understanding of the nature of science.

	The teachers have integrated the practical aspects of some of the GLOBE protocols in their day-to-day teaching. This has enabled them to make their teaching more interactive and effective.

	GLOBE has set as a mechanism for teachers to design field-based science programs that prepares students to conduct long term scientific inquiry projects.

Teachers role in the GLOBE Program

As a GLOBE teacher, you have embarked on a bold adventure in both science and

education. This program enables you and your class to engage in a collaborative, scientific inquiry into the world around you. Through this program, you have joined a worldwide partnership of teachers, students, and scientists working together to strengthen education and learn more about the environment. Your students have the opportunity to explore both the far concerns of the GLOBE and the wonders of their own neighbourhood. Your leadership role enables your student to have the opportunity to use research-quality observations in their studies and to contribute their environmental observations for research scientists and other GLOBE students to use in their works.

How to teach a GLOBE Protocol

The GLOBE Program comprises of many interesting GLOBE protocols, which require some specific methods/procedures to be followed.

Steps followed by GLOBE trained teachers to teach the GLOBE protocols:

	STEP I - Introducing the basic concept
	STEP II - Selecting the study site
	STEP III - Learning and understanding the protocol
	STEP IV - Doing the real science
	STEP V - Submitting and using the data on an ongoing basis

STEP 1

Introducing the basic concept
Make sure that your students understand the basic concepts of the GLOBE protocol they are performing. Unless and until the students are fully engaged with the measurement process, they will not understand the concepts completely. However at this stage, they at least need to have an introduction to the concepts.

STEP II

Selecting the study site
Make your students to understand the guidelines for selecting the study or sample site for the GLOBE Measurements. To know the criteria for site selection CLICK HERE.

STEP III

Learning and understanding the protocol
Introduce the instruments: GLOBE teachers are advised to show the instruments required for performing the GLOBE experiments. Students may not able to understand fully how these instruments work until they have experience using it.

Demonstrate the protocol: Demonstrate the steps of the GLOBE protocol as detailed in the GLOBE Investigation. Demonstration can be made in the classroom in most of the cases. Teachers can write the steps of the protocol on the board for students to follow along.

Students practice the protocol: Individually or in team, students practice the same steps as demonstrated by their teachers. Teachers are advised to watch them carefully and also to help them in perfecting their techniques.

Record and discuss the practice data: As the students have practiced the protocol, teachers help them in recording the measurements in the GLOBE data sheets. Teachers are then advised to review these measurements with their students and discuss the range of the results. If there are any abnormal values, discuss why these might have occurred. This introduces the concept of data quality, which is essential for the entire GLOBE program. Help the students in improving their techniques.

STEP IV

Doing the real science
Get all your material ready and go to the study site: Gather the instruments, data recording sheets, pens or pencils, and any other materials that are needed to do the GLOBE measurements. Go to the study site with your class, taking the required materials along.

Demonstrate the full protocol at the study site: Your students have practiced most of the protocols in the classrooms, but there may be new elements for them to learn. Now as they are at the actual study site, demonstrate the full protocol and make sure that students understand it.

Students do the real protocol at the study or sample site: Ask your students to do the GLOBE protocols step by step. Watch them carefully to make sure that they are doing it correctly.

Check the data for reasonableness: After your students have completed the protocol and recorded the measurements on the data work sheets, let them think about the data. If the data collected by the students is not reasonable, then try to figure out the problem and correct it.

Submit the data: Use the GLOBE web pages to submit the data to the GLOBE Student data server. Before submitting the data entering sheets, make sure that the students have entered the correct values.

How to help your Students Design their Own Investigations

Encouraging students to conduct science investigations is at the heart of GLOBE's approach to education. Students can use data from their own GLOBE Study site, as well as data from other schools to ask questions, seek answers by looking at real data, pursue their own interests, establish partnerships with other schools throughout the world, and explore the interconnections among the various phenomena which comprise the Earth system. Students may design their own investigations as well.

Some thoughts to keep in mind as you proceed

1.	The nature of your investigations will depend on local factors - The exact nature of student investigations will vary from school to school. It will depend on the characteristics of your own GLOBE study site, the GLOBE data you use, the interests and expertise, the capabilities and expertise that is made available to your students from their community, the technology available to you, the age and experience level of your students and the amount of time that you have available.

2.	Investigations should be based on student's questions - Investigations begin with questions. Even if you focus students on a specific area, the investigations themselves must begin with questions that the students are sincerely asking.

3.	Students should take direct observations - Students investigations should be grounded in their observations of the phenomena they are studying.

4.	Students should use data from the GLOBE Student Data Server - This database of student observations is a unique and valuable resource to support student research and learning.

5.	Students should build on what they know - Students will collect data for the atmosphere. Hydrology, Soil and Land Cover / Biology Investigations. They should also do a variety of related learning activities to strengthen their understanding of the measurement protocols and resulting data. The investigations should build on this knowledge base.

6.	Students should trap other sources of information - Students should pursue other sources of data and representations of these data's such as images, graphs, tables of data and other visualizations available through GLOBE.

7.	Students should collaborate with other GLOBE students throughout the world - GLOBE epitomizes this in the scientists' reliance on data from thousands of students worldwide. Most Earth scientists work in teams because of the extensive nature of environmental research. So students' investigations usually are strengthened or enabled by collaboration among several students who divide the responsibilities and share their thoughts.

8.	Your students can do investigations at any point in the year - The best time for an investigation is when the students are truly engaged and curious about something they see at their study site, in the GLOBE data, or in the news.

9.	Investigations can be short or long - Help your students to set achievable objectives so that they can see results from their work before they loose interest. Generally there may be no single right answer. Students tend to assume that answers are either right or wrong, but for many questions, there is no single right answer.

10.	Most investigations are interactive and messy - In many cases; one does not simply state a hypothesis. The process involves asking many questions, exploring the data, making questions exploring the data, making guesses, doing more observation rethinking the questions, checking other sources, discussing and arguing with colleagues and questioning underlying assumptions.

11.	One investigation will lead to another - If the topic is truly engaging for your students, one investigation is likely to lead to another.

12.	Explore local issues - When students realize that they can contribute to their community or interact with scientists directly, it is often a boost to moral and confidence.