In this article, The North American Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE) shares the programs and publications it developed to advance E-STEM—the integration of environmental education into STEM.
CoCoRaHS (The Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network) is a citizen science program where thousands of volunteers across the entire country measure and report the amount of precipitation that falls each day in their own neighborhood (see http:www.cocorahs.org). In the next three years CoCoRaHS will use strategies from the "Citizen Science Toolkit" and align activities to the "Essential Principles to Climate Science" to engage thousands more participants in collecting, reporting and exploring precipitation. Evapotranspiration measurements will be added to better teach and demonstrate the hydrologic cycle in action. Through strong NOAA partnerships with the National Weather Service, the National Climatic Data Center, the Earth Systems Research Lab and the National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center, precipitation data quality and accessibility for professional users will be enhanced. The CoCoRaHS network will be constructing training, data entry and visualization tools utilizing Web 2.0 concepts, cyberlearning tools and hand-held device applications with a goal of increasing participation and expanding the current volunteer network into broader, younger, more diverse and more interactive audiences.
The Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow (CoCoRaHS) network is an existing backyard citizen science project that is enhancing the research efforts of scientists and promoting climate literacy among the public by engaging volunteers in precipitation-monitoring activities. More than 14,000 volunteer citizen scientists of all ages in 50 states currently measure precipitation from their homes, schools, public areas and businesses using rain gauges, snow rulers and hail pads, and then post their data to the CoCoRaHS website. Building on this work, the current Broad Implementation project is enhancing CoCoRaHS' network and making it possible for more people from across the country to monitor precipitation. The enhancements include (1) installing a new generation of data entry, storage, management, analysis and visualization tools, (2) collecting evapo-transpiration data to improve scientists' water cycle models, (3) revising and creating new citizen science training materials (print and multimedia), (4) expanding national collaboration and outreach via integration of social networking and mobile device technologies, and (5) developing a standards-aligned K-12 education outreach component that has a national reach. Citizen scientists are being equipped and trained to be neighborhood climate data analysts and are provided with new tools for data analysis and inquiry learning. The enhancements will allow new collaborations between museums and science centers, targeted outreach to underserved audiences, and recruitment of thousands of new volunteers for the CoCoRaHS network. Through a partnership with the National Association of Conservation Districts, the project will conduct educational outreach to all 3,140 counties in the country. Anticipated results include increased numbers of people, particularly younger people, participating in precipitation-monitoring activities, and increased participant knowledge, skills, interest, and involvement in climate science and scientific inquiry. Building the project's capacity to involve 20,000-50,000 more volunteers across nation will increase the density of precipitation-monitoring stations, providing scientists with higher quality weather data.
This poster was presented at the 2014 AISL PI Meeting in Washington, DC. The Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow (CoCoRaHS) network is an existing backyard citizen science project that is enhancing the research efforts of scientists and promoting climate literacy among the public by engaging volunteers in precipitation-monitoring activities.