Engaging undergraduate students in project-based science through citizen science: The GLOBE Program

The GLOBE Program was started as a program for K-12 students over 25 years ago. It is a citizen science program in over 120 countries around the world with students focusing observations in from four spheres: atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and pedosphere. In GLOBE, students take environmental observations, complete research projects and present their results at local, regional and international symposia. Undergraduate students can complete their studies without ever having performed a scientific study or taken their own observations of the environment. A grass-roots group of undergraduate professors (all members of the GLOBE Program) started to bring GLOBE into their undergraduate courses and share their experiences with each other through virtual meetings each semester. GLOBE observations are one way to engage students in taking observations. GLOBE has given undergraduate professors a way to implement project-based science and local observations into undergraduate courses. GLOBE also is a way to bring the scientific process to students in a hands-on approach. In this presentation, we will share different ways that GLOBE is being used in undergraduate courses ranging from pre-service science education to STEM science sources to engineering capstone courses.