On Tuesday, March 27, Stamford High School teacher Sue Dougherty announced that freshmen Sasha Nunoveri, Astrid Lucero, Neisha Boiteux, and Prish Kulkarni will be participating in the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program in the upcoming weeks. She has also announced that she and Education College Studies (ECS) Director (and Stamford High English teacher) Kristin Veenema will bring the girls to the GLOBE conference in Buffalo, NY to present their research and compete in a science symposium for the program.

The students have this opportunity thanks to a $7,500 grant from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

For those unaware, the GLOBE Program is an international science and education program in various high schools worldwide, consisting of 120 countries, including Canada, Spain, Japan, Australia and more. The program provides students with the opportunity to participate in data collection and the scientific process. Overall, the purpose of students’ research is to contribute meaningfully to the people’s understanding of the Earth system and global environment.

According to their website, the GLOBE Program hopes to prosper as “A worldwide community of students, teachers, scientists, and citizens working together to better understand, sustain, and improve Earth’s environment at local, regional, and global scales.”

To elaborate on what participators do, students conduct investigations and perform activities to gather information on the Earth’s atmosphere as well as implementing science protocols and the usage of scientific instruments to advance and improve their research.

Dougherty explained that the students will be focusing on aerosol and temperature measurements in the atmosphere, as they will be outside during the school day in order to acquire data. The students will be utilizing an array of measuring tools such as a sun photometer (used to measure aerosols) and an assortment of thermometers (used to measure temperatures). Progressively, the girls will deposit the information they have attained into the GLOBE database found on their website.

Dougherty expressed her gratitude for the girls and their work. She said, “I felt a responsibility to these students who participated in the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) and they worked hard to be finalists, yet they didn’t compare to the upperclassmen who had experience in AP classes.”

Following their weeks of research, Stamford High’s student participators will have the chance to attend GLOBE’s symposium in Buffalo, NY. In the event (sponsored by NASA and NOAA), the students will present their findings to other schools and scientists. Additionally, there will be scientists at the conference who will conduct science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) activities for the students.

Additionally, the students themselves will be presenting their research at Stamford’s 2018 STEMfest. The date is to be determined in the upcoming months.