How GLOBE Works

Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) is a hands-on international environmental science and education program. GLOBE links students, teachers, and the scientific research community in an effort to learn more about our environment through student data collection and observation.

The goals of GLOBE are:

• to improve student achievement across the curriculum with a focus on student research in environmental and Earth system science;
• to enhance awareness and support activities of individuals throughout the world to benefits the environment;
• to contribute to scientific understanding of Earth as a system; and
• to connect and inspire the next generation of global scientists.

Students from the ages of approximately five through eighteen years in schools throughout the world conduct a continuing program of scientifically meaningful environmental measurements. GLOBE students transmit their data to a central data processing facility via the Internet, receive vivid images composed of their data and data from other GLOBE schools around the world, acquire information from a variety of sources, and collaborate with scientists and other GLOBE students and communities worldwide in using these data for education and research.

The measurements taken by the GLOBE students serve two important purposes. First, participating scientists use these data in their research programs to improve our understanding of the global environment. Second, students not only learn how to carry out a scientifically rigorous program of Earth observations, but also learn to use their own measurements, together with data from other GLOBE schools, as a key part of their study of environmental science. Through contact with and mentoring by scientists, the students receive feedback about the value of their data sets in world class scientific research.

GLOBE provides extensive educational materials to enrich the learning experience of participating students. These materials include a wide variety of classroom and field activities to help students place their measurements in a broader context and relate their own local observations to global environmental issues.

Using state-of-the-art technology, GLOBE creates a forum for students to communicate with their peers around the world, thus fostering alliances among students and increasing not only their environmental understanding but also their understanding of other cultures and their sense of global community.