Students Engaged in Climate Change Research Through Vegetation Phenology Studies
Abstract
The project goal is to engage students in scientific research as a way of learning science, math, and technology in K-12 classrooms by providing an opportunity for student-scientist collaborations. This NSF-funded GLOBE project is of significance to scientists who track plant phenological changes as an indicator of climate change and study carbon cycling. To students it is a means of studying Earth as a system. Plants and their phenology stages reflect and integrate the effects of weather and other environmental parameters that are components of the Earth system. Remotely sensed data indicate that the plant growing season has increased in northern latitudes. The greenness estimates could vary due to possible interference from clouds and other atmospheric properties, low sun angles at high latitudes and aging of satellite detectors; hence the need for ground-based observations to help validate satellite-derived estimates of plant growing season lengths. GLOBE plant phenology measurements (protocols) of Green-up and Green-down for deciduous trees and shrubs, and for grasses were developed at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and Budburst at Utah State University. These were pilot- tested, and revised several times with input from teachers and GLOBE personnel. Learning activities to support understanding of science concepts, were also developed and/or adapted. The protocols and learning activities were aligned to national science standards and incorporated in the "Earth as a System" chapter in the 2003 GLOBE Teacher Guide published and also posted on the GLOBE website (www.globe.gov). Phenology protocols and learning activities are being used in Alaska by teachers and students who participate in different NSF and NASA-funded science education programs, such as the Schoolyard Long Term Ecological Research Project, the Global Change Education Using Western Science and Native Observations (OLCG) Project, the Alaska GLOBE program and the EPSCoR Rural Research Partnership Education Outreach program. Pre-college students and their teachers from 77 schools in 11 countries have engaged in GLOBE plant phenology research and entered phenology data on the GLOBE web server. Thus, collaborative efforts in research and education among science education projects in Alaska and in other countries have been facilitated. Scientists now have access to global plant phenology data-ground-based observations that previously have been very rare. Students have also used the phenology protocols for their own investigations.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2004
- Bibcode:
- 2004AGUFMED33B0776S
- Keywords:
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- 1851 Plant ecology;
- 0400 Biogeosciences;
- 0805 Elementary and secondary education