Future scientists on the go

BANGALORE: Look at the clouds above your school building. Measure atmospheric moisture in class. Load the data onto the Globe website and let the whole world know what you have done about your environment.
Future scientists of the world begin young, and begin realistically, studying their environment and climate, learning to handle photometres and other recording equipment.Students from over 120 schools in the country are embarking on this ‘‘learn science by doing science’’ programme. Children will be providing the ground-validation for data recorded by satellites from space.
NASA and the National Science Foundation together in America launched ‘Globe’, a unique partnership between scientists and schoolchildren, which is already into its ninth year. India recently joined the programme as the 97th country in the network, though the project hasn’t picked up pace here yet. Presently, 100 countries are part of the effort.
Bangalore’s own eight Kendriya Vidyalaya schools have been networked in the project. Students are being taught basic measurements. In the long run, they will be able to measure and record temperature, atmospheric pressure, soil moisture, land-cover and rainfall.
‘‘ISRO has been approached to provide IRS satellite maps for the project. In India, the ministry of forests and environment is implementing it,’’ said Sanjay S Limaye, a planetary scientist and director, Office of Space Science Education at the University of Wisconsin.
A global partner of the programme, he is in Bangalore at the 90th Indian Science Congress to get scientists involved in ‘Globe’.