The GLOBE Carbon Project: Integrating the science of carbon cycling and climate change into K-12 classrooms.
Scott
Ollinger, University of New Hampshire, scott.ollinger@unh.edu
(Presenting)
Sarah
Silverberg, University of New Hampshire, sara.silverberg@unh.edu
Jana
Albrectova, Charles University, albrecht@natur.cuni.cz
Mary
Martin, University of New Hampshire, mary.martin@unh.edu
Annette
Schloss, University of New Hampshire, annette.schloss@unh.edu
Rita
Freuder, University of New Hampshire, rita.freuder@unh.edu
Lara
Gengarelly, University of New Hampshire, laga.gengarelly@unh.edu
The global carbon cycle is a key regulator of the Earth's climate and is central to the normal function of ecological systems. Because rising atmospheric CO2 caused is the principal cause of climate change, understanding how ecosystems cycle and store carbon has become an extremely important issue. In recent years, the growing importance of the carbon cycle has brought it to the forefront of both science and environmental policy. The need for better scientific understanding has led to establishment of numerous research programs, such as the North American Carbon Program (NACP), which seeks to understand controls on carbon cycling under present and future conditions. Presently, parallel efforts are needed to integrate state-of-the-art science on the carbon cycle and its importance to climate with education and outreach efforts that help prepare society to make sound decisions on energy use, carbon management and climate change adaptation.
Here, we present a new effort that joins carbon cycle scientists with the International GLOBE Education program to develop carbon cycle activities for K-12 classrooms. GLOBE Carbon Cycle is focused on bringing the most cutting edge research and research techniques in the field of terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycling into the classroom. Students will collect data about their school field site through existing protocols of phenology, land cover and soils as well as new protocols focused on leaf traits, and ecosystem growth and change. They will also participate in classroom activities to understand carbon cycling in terrestrial ecosystems, these will include plant-a-plant experiments, hands-on demonstrations of various concepts, and analysis of collected data. In addition to the traditional GLOBE experience, students will have the opportunity to integrate their data with emerging and expanding technologies including global and local carbon cycle models and remote sensing toolkits. This program design will allow students to explore research questions from local to global scales with both present and future environmental conditions.
NASA Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Active Awards Represented by this Poster: