Boy Scouts Team Up with Colorado State to Help Local Schools Participate in National Environmental Education Program

Boy Scouts from several Fort Collins troops are teaming up this weekend with Colorado State University to build weather station shelters to be donated to local schools participating in the GLOBE environmental education and science program (www.globe.gov). The scouts will be constructing shelters from 9 a.m.-noon outside the Atmospheric Science Building on the university’s Foothills Campus.

Eagle Scout candidate Greg Colton will lead the construction effort with assistance from faculty and staff from Colorado State’s Department of Atmospheric Science. Teachers and their students at Putnam Elementary and other local elementary schools will use the instrument shelters to join the GLOBE international network of students worldwide taking scientific measurements of the Earth’s atmosphere.

GLOBE is a worldwide, hands-on, environmental education and science program designed to inspire students to become scientists by studying nature. Students collect environmental data to address climate change, watersheds, agriculture and urban environments, among many other possibilities. Scientists can then use the data in their research. More than 100 countries participate in the GLOBE program that has reached over one million students in more than 14,000 schools in the past decade.

Scientists and researchers at Colorado State develop training materials, provide system support and study the atmosphere information provided by schools involved in the GLOBE program. Last year, GLOBE headquarters moved to Colorado and Colorado State is part of the new administration.

"Through GLOBE, students take research-quality environmental measurements and have many opportunities to interact with scientists and contribute to actual scientific research," said Debra Krumm, Northern Colorado GLOBE Partner Coordinator. "The GLOBE program provides students with many stimulating investigative opportunities to explore the environment and enables them to contribute data to research that would otherwise be unavailable."

Saturday’s event is being supported by United Building Centers and Mawson Lumber & Hardware Company, which are donating the wood for the instrument shelters; and Brown Enterprises, which is pre-cutting the forms for assembly. After they finish building, the Boy Scouts will learn more about the environmental research that will be conducted with the atmospheric science instruments.

For more information about Saturday’s event, contact Nan McClurg at (970) 491-8580 or Kelly Dean at (970) 491-8708. For more information about the GLOBE Program, call 1-800-858-9947 or go on the Web to www.globe.gov.

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