Sunday, May 20, 2012

TOR is Taking Rover Cloud Obs to the Next Level!

Direct quote below from the NASA Observe Your World web site about Brian Butera's classes and their work with NASA!!     Way to go!

Read the whole article here....  https://mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov/oyw/?p=1824

------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Butera is a sixth grade teacher at Turn of the River Middle School in Stamford Connecticut.  In early March 2012, he registered 4 of his classes for the S’COOL Project.  Since then, he has encouraged his students to also observe as ROVERs .   Through Skype meetings between his classroom and S’COOL Team members, along with the formal educational guidance of the S’COOL website and the flexibility of ROVER observations, Mr. Butera has customized the S’COOL Project for what works best in his classroom.  For example, for the assessment component in his classes, Mr. Butera uses one of three options:  Students can give him their ROVER nickname and he can search for their reports in the ROVER database; they can print the online report form and turn it in with their data; or, they can print and turn in the match emails S’COOL sends when their ground observation matches satellite cloud data.

Butera explains that the S’COOL/ROVER project, “gave [his] students the ability to take what they learn in the classroom and apply it directly in the field with actual real life research.  [He] also enjoyed how the program tied directly into [his] weather and atmosphere unit, utilized outdoor observations, and applied and tied in the results of the outdoor observations to technology.” Butera describes, “ As ROVERs, [his students] observe together during the week and make individual observations on the weekend”.

What are Mr. Butera’s students saying about the projects? Ryan Carroll comments, “I learned just how important clouds are to climate.”  Daniel Bagalloo agrees, ” I didn’t know just how important clouds can maybe help us see changes to our planet.” Arden Lesoravage responded,  ” I learned how important day to day data can help in determining weather changes.”

Mr. Butera and his students took Rover cloud observation to the next level, with 1,252 Rover reports over the past 3 months!!  Congrats Turn of the River Middle School!

No comments:

Post a Comment