Students on EARTH Magazine

Benchmarks: April 22, 1995: GLOBE is launched

Wed, 13 Apr 2016 18:16:03 -0400

Over the last 20 years, GLOBE students have collected 130 million environmental observations, often without the use of sophisticated instruments. To calculate tree heights (left), students make and use a simple clinometer to measure the angle between the ground and the treetops. To measure clouds (right), students divide the sky into quadrants using their raised arms, then identify cloud types and estimate coverage in each quadrant. Credit: both: courtesy of The Globe Program/All Rights Reserved.

Studying the global environment requires collecting numerous detailed observations. And although it may seem today like we’re awash in such data, relevant observations — collected at the right time and place — are often unavailable. For example, scientists studying precipitation must rely on just a handful of sampling stations: All of the world’s raingages gathered together would only cover an area the size of two basketball courts.

Beyond rocks for jocks: Elevating geoscience education

Fri, 25 Apr 2014 12:54:41 -0400

Credit: Copyright Shutterstock.com/Goodluz

When I was an undergraduate student, all liberal arts students were required to take a science course as a general education requirement. If I recall correctly, the science options were astronomy, biology, chemistry, physical geology and physics. The astronomy, chemistry and physics classes were highly quantitative, which frightened off many general education students. The alternatives of biology and physical geology tended to be more attractive because their core content was less rooted in high-level mathematics. Thus, the physical geology course was a favorite of athletes seeking to fulfill a general education requirement, and for this reason it was called, as it is at many schools, “Rocks for Jocks.”

Undergraduates build and launch a satellite to measure atmospheric drag

Tue, 01 Oct 2013 13:39:19 -0400

In 2000, the International Space Station (ISS) was the victim of a severe geomagnetic storm: a wave of solar particles hit Earth’s atmosphere, warming it, expanding it, and increasing its density. In just a few days, the space station's elevation dropped several kilometers. The incident received a lot of attention in the media, but thousands of satellites experience changes in altitude during solar storms. Their controllers — including NASA and the Air Force’s Space Command — rely on imperfect models to predict the satellites' locations, and it costs time and money to reposition these devices.

Core skills in the geosciences: The geoblogosphere chimes in on what students need to know

Mon, 05 Aug 2013 10:17:27 -0400

Jessica Ball is working toward her Ph.D. in volcanology at SUNY Buffalo. Courtesy of Jessica Ball

Last April, I had a discussion with some of my fellow graduate students in the geology department at the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York (SUNY Buffalo) about teaching. One topic raised by those of us working with senior undergraduates was the skills our students would need to have by the time they left the department. We realized that many students take winding paths on the way to finishing a major for various reasons, including that they transferred from another school, they switched majors, or they are double-majoring and have time conflicts. A winding path isn’t necessarily detrimental as long as the students come out of the process with a solid geoscience skillset. But what should that skillset include?

Highlights of 2011: Jobs, jobs everywhere, but not enough people to fill them

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Geologists working on Mount St. Helens in Washington. Courtesy USGS Cascade Volcano Observatory, ESW Image Bank

This has been a vintage year for the health of the geoscience workforce in the United States. Overall enrollments and degrees in geoscience programs increased 5 to 10 percent — as they’ve been doing for the past four years — this year reaching nearly 25,000 undergraduate majors and 10,000 graduate students across the country. Employment opportunities for geoscientists continue to be widespread, with more jobs available than people to fill them.

Student scientists cast a long shadow

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Nate Burgess

Andy Olander explains his poster to scientists at the American Geophysical Union's annual meeting in December 2008. Turtle Haste

Shannon Hamilton (left) and Meagan Richards measure sun shadows. Turtle Haste

Scientists in Antarctica measure sun shadows cast by the pole marking the South Pole. Charlie Kaminski

Last December, in the enormous, fluorescent-lit hall of San Francisco’s Moscone Center South, thousands of geophysicists and geologists milled through dozens of aisles of poster displays, chatting enthusiastically about the latest in geophysical research at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Within each aisle, people clustered around the more intriguing displays, trying to hear more about a given researcher’s work. At the center of one such group, commanding his own audience, was the youngest scientist ever to present research at an AGU conference.