Last week, Mr. Dickson, a GLOBE teacher, shared his experiences and how GLOBE has impacted his teaching.  This week, he will let us know how he was able to easily incorporate GLOBE into his classroom.

My adventure to becoming a GLOBE teacher was all because I took advantage of the opportunities presented to me.  The school that I teach at is an inner city school with adequate resources for basic science needs, but lacking in technology to monitor such things as water quality, biomass, etc.  I was struggling to find ways to get my students involved with research.  Luckily, while studying at Southern Connecticut State University, I registered for an ecology class taught by Professor Scott Graves.

Dr. Graves has been a GLOBE trainer in Connecticut for a number of years.  In an effort to promote the GLOBE program, Dr. Graves teaches about it in his ecology courses, demonstrating that it is not only a successful research program for students, but that it costs next to nothing to participate in.  Within weeks, I had learned how to create a densitometer to measure tree canopy using nothing more than a piece of PCP piping, dental floss and a paper clip!  Measuring tree height required only a piece of cardboard, a printout measuring guide, a piece of string, and a paperclip.  I didn’t need to purchase any tools; I simply needed to create some using materials that I already had.

Mr. Dickson's students performing hydrology protocols

(Note from The GLOBE Program Office – Is your teacher GLOBE trained?  If not, he or she can contact a local partner or country coordinator to see about future training opportunities!  Find the closest one by clicking on your country here: http://classic.globe.gov/fsl/INTL/table.pl?.)

Technology was the next step.  With research, I discovered that Yale University and Southern Connecticut State University provide outreach programs to local New Haven and West Haven, CT schools.  Through a loaner program, I could borrow equipment whenever needed as long as I scheduled a time with professors to borrow them.  As I researched further, I discovered that almost every college/university in the United States provides assistance to high schools.  With the assistance of Dr. Graves and Thomas Parlpiano of Yale, I had Vernier probeware equipment and other water chemistry tools.  Now that I had the technology, I needed a site.

This, again, was a far less rigorous task than I assumed it to be.  Every town has property set-aside as watershed properties, or ecological reserves.  They allow, in fact appreciate, schools that assist in monitoring water quality and/or biomass because it keeps them informed with the condition of their reserve while giving students a place to perform their research.  With the assistance of Dr. Graves and the West Haven City Council, I discovered our Cove River research site right behind our school.  It is a watershed located right on Long Island Sound where Cove River transitions from fresh water to salt water.  It is a deciduous forest that provides habitat to many species of animals and plants.  The opportunity was presented to the city of West Haven for free monitoring of their Cove River site and the students of my school were given a chance to study the ecology of Cove River right behind their school.  By simply asking the people that I work with, the professors with whom I study, and the town council, I had the technology and the place to study, for free!

Cove River Habitat

Using the resources that I had through local universities (especially SCSU), the new GLOBE resources that were sent to me as part of my participation in the From Learning to Research project, and inspiration to include year-long project based research in their curriculum, I set into motion projects my students completed this year.  GLOBE presented this wonderful opportunity; all I needed to do was convince my students to take advantage of it.  The research and accomplishments that they made this year will carry with them through college and their future career.

-Mr. Kevin Dickson

Mr, Dickson’s students spent this past school year working on climate research projects studying their local environment.  Have you been part of a research project about your local environment?  Let us know by sending an email to science@globe.gov or adding a comment.

This week we have a guest blog from Dr. Krisanadej Jaroensutasinee and Dr. Mullica Jaroensutasinee from the Centre of Excellence for Ecoinformatics at Walailak University in Thailand.  The research they are presenting in this blog is also done with Dr. Siriwan Wongkoon, also from the Centre of Excellence for Ecoinformatics at Walailak University and Dr. Elena Sparrow with the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

Dengue is a serious public health problem in the tropical regions, particularly in Thailand. World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that about 50-100 million cases of dengue are recorded all over the world annually and two-fifths of the world population are at risk. More than one hundred countries have been affected by dengue or Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever/Dengue Shock Syndrome (DHF/DSS) epidemics. Indonesia, northern Australia, Central and South America, Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and some parts of the Caribbean have seen cases of this disease.   Dengue fever is characterized by a sudden, high fever.  A rash appears a few days after the fever has set in, and may also be accompanied by headaches, muscle and joint aches, and digestive upset.

A mosquito - from Wikicommons

In Thailand, dengue epidemics of increasing magnitude and severity occur every two to four years beyond the endemic levels. An endemic is when an infection is maintained within a certain population.  Although dengue occurs throughout the year, cases peak from June to August, the wet season in Thailand. Neither a vaccine nor specific treatment for dengue fever is available. Vector control, which is the method in which mosquitoes are limited or eradicated, seems to be the most possible solution to prevent dengue transmission. Mosquito population dynamics are not the same in different geographical regions where dengue is transmitted suggesting that the influence of climate on dengue may be site specific.

As a mosquito-borne disease with a seasonal distribution, environmental factors, including weather variables, may play a significant role in the transmission of dengue. Temperature, rainfall, and relative humidity are major parameters influencing the incidence of dengue fever in Thailand. The prediction of global climate change and transmission of dengue and its geographic spread has been widely studied. Since dengue transmission is highly dependent on local environmental factors, it may not be possible to predict incidence outside locations with extensive valid data. However, investigations of local weather conditions and dengue incidence in different environmental and regional contexts can improve our understanding of the linkages between weather variables and dengue transmission, as well as provide strong scientific evidence for predicting future transmission patterns.

Monitoring of mosquito larvae, finding mosquito larval indices, and predicting dengue incidence can facilitate early warning and disease control and prevention. We developed Thailand mosquito protocol and the Mosquito Web Database System (MDS). The MDS provides an essential tool for querying, analyzing and visualizing patterns of mosquito larvae distribution in Thailand. MDS was developed using Structured Query Language (SQL) technology as a web-based tool for data entry and data access, webMathematica technology for data analysis and data visualization and Google Earth™ for Geographic Information System (GIS) visualization. The MDS prototype is available online at http://www.twibl.org/mosquito.  The following images show screen captures of this web-based data entry system.

Mosquito web database home page

Data entry suite: site definition containing socio-economic data

Data entry suite: mosquito larva datasheet containing data of mosquitoes in both indoor and outdoor water storage containers

Twelve selected schools in Thailand provided test data for MDS. Users performed data entry using the web-service, data analysis and data visualization tools with webMathematica, data visualization with bar charts, larval indices, and three-dimensional (3D) bar charts overlaying on Google Earth™. The 3D bar charts of the number of mosquito larvae were displayed along with spatial information. These Google maps and mosquito larvae information should be useful to the dengue control and health service communities for their planning and operational activities.  An example of the 3D bar chart is shown in the following image.

GIS tool displaying the number of mosquito larva distribution in 3D bar charts on Google Earth

In addition to using 3D charts, the system also provides statistical information on mosquitoes as well as basic charts showing the number of mosquito larvae in indoor and outdoor containers.

A screen capture of the statistical tool showing max/min/mean and results from the Chi-square

A screen capture of the graphic tool displaying the monthly mosquito larvae in indoor and outdoor containers

Are mosquitos a problem in your area?  Have you done any research connecting atmospheric variables to mosquito populations?  Send us an email at science@globe.gov or add a comment to let us know about your research!

Many of the world’s glaciers, such as the Exit Glacier in Alaska, United States and Pasterze Glacier in Austria, have lost mass due to melting over the past few years. One such glacier, Exploradores in southern Chile, is also disappearing. This glacier is a sight to behold – a 20 kilometer frozen mass that is filled with cliffs of luminescent blue and indigo ice.

A view from inside the Exploradores Glacier, from Nature

The Exploradores Glacier is one of many glaciers in the Patagonian Ice Fields located in the Andes Mountains between Argentina and Chile.  This and many of the other glaciers in this region, such as the San Rafael and Jorge Montt, are retreating. Glacier retreat is one of many visible signs of climate change.

Map of the Patagonian Ice Fields, created by Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal

While there is no question that the glaciers are retreating, there is an uncertainty as to the cause of the retreat.  Scientists all over the world are looking to the Patagonian Ice Field for answers.  In an article featured in Nature, Chilean and British scientists discuss the glacier melt.  Some of these scientists have been visiting the glacier to collect important data, like temperature, precipitation, humidity and wind speed, to evaluate the health of the glaciers.  Connecting these weather variables to glacier recession is an important task, and will help answer the questions of how quickly the glaciers are disappearing and how that will affect local water supply.  While I’ve only named three glaciers in the region, there are over 100 in the Patagonian Ice Field that are being monitored.

Of the 100 glaciers being monitored for their weather conditions, nearly 90% are retreating.  It is estimated that since 1650, over 600 cubic kilometers of ice have melted between the northern and southern regions of the ice field, with the rate speeding up in recent decades.  This is concerning because of the fresh water on the earth, about 75% of it is found in glaciers.  If glacier melt continues, there could be major consequences.  A reduction in fresh water supply, loss of habitat for animals and plant species, and excessive flooding are just three problems we could face if these glaciers continue receding.  It is worth noting that glacier recession is normal, but what is concerning is the rate of recession.  If the rate of recession doesn’t slow down, we’ll see not only these beautiful landscapes disappear, but with it valuable paleoclimate data found in the ice.  We’re literally seeing data washed away through melt runoff!

While you may not be able to study glaciers as a GLOBE school, the research done by these scientists show a method for connecting local weather to climate.  How can you, as a GLOBE school, connect your local weather to climate?  This is a very important aspect of the Student Climate Research Campaign!  We’d love to hear your thoughts – send us an email at science@globe.gov or leave a comment!

­-Jessica Mackaro