UC Santa Barbara Public Affairs and Communications

NEWS RELEASE

GLOBE TEACHER TRAINING WORKSHOP SLATED FOR UCSB

March 13, 1998

West Coast K-12 teachers—armed with raingear, bug spray, and sunscreen—will attend a training workshop at the University of California, Santa Barbara March 24-27 to learn science protocals and educational activities in the field and in the computer laboratory that will enable their schools to become part of the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) program. GLOBE is a hands-on, Internet-based environmental science and education program with over 5,000 schools in 60 countries reporting 1,000,000 scientific observations via the World Wide Web (http://www.globe.gov).

Locally, Peggy Lubchenco's students at La Colina Junior High School diligently measure precipitation levels outside their classroom every day and send their data to NOAA/Forecast Systems Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., as part of an international experiment on El Niño. The students also measure air temperature and cloud cover. Such seemingly simple tasks have profound effects on scientists' understanding of the earth, and teach students how to observe the environment.

"It's a really neat program that can only get better as more schools become involved," says Lubchenco, a GLOBE master teacher. "My students perform their roles very seriously. It makes a difference to them that they are contributing to actual science projects."

"As a world-class research university we're in a unique position to work with local teachers, and we have the facilities for large-scale workshops," adds Chris Foster, UCSB's K-12 academic outreach coordinator and workshop organizer.

The workshop is free except for a meal fee. For registration and more information on the GLOBE Teacher Training Workshop, call the K-14 Academic Outreach Office at 893-7970 or e-mail outreach@ucsb.edu.

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