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Sustainability Education
GLOBE is an initiative of the US Government and stands for Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment. It creates an international network of students in primary and secondary schools, studying environmental issues, making environmental measurements, and sharing useful environmental data with the international environmental science community.
The Australian Government has agreed to participate in the GLOBE Program as part of its commitment to international co-operation on the environment. The project is being supported by the Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, and the Department of Education, Training and Youth Affairs.
The GLOBE Program is a hands-on environmental science and education program that joins students, educators, and scientists from around the world in studying the global environment.
The goals of the GLOBE Program are to:
Over 10 000 schools in 95 countries are participating in GLOBE. GLOBE students have reported over 3 million science observations in the areas of atmosphere, hydrology, land cover/biology and soils. In Australia, there are currently 300 GLOBE Australia schools.
GLOBE students:
GLOBE involves students conducting environmental measurements near their school and reporting their data to GLOBE. Schools then have access to vivid graphical global environmental images produced in the USA from participants' data via the Internet. This allows students to be actively involved in global environmental studies which will broaden their environmental knowledge and understanding. It also provides an opportunity to create personal links with other schools both here and overseas.
The environmental science community is involved in the design and implementation of GLOBE to ensure that GLOBE student environmental measurements make a significant contribution to the global environmental data base. International scientists participate in selecting GLOBE scientific measurements, developing measurement procedures, and ensuring overall quality control of data.
GLOBE educational materials and learning activities have been developed by international environmental educators to help guide the students in conducting their measurement and also in understanding the significance and interrelationships of the measurements they make.
The GLOBE program resource material is freely available online.
This manual provides information on the GLOBE Program, the scientific protocols as well as classroom activities and a Global Change Education Resource Guide.
For more information, contact the Sustainability Education Section on 02 6274 1524
