Nothing beats getting 200 students from seven different schools across Maine to meet up and share their experiences on being citizen scientists. This is exactly what happened on May 11, when over 250 students and educators from the WeatherBlur cohort descended on the Hutchinson Center in Belfast to display their work via poster sessions and participate in hands-on activities provided by the National Weather Service, Maine Geological Survey, Island Institute, Herring Gut Center and Hurricane Island.
WeatherBlur is an MMSA place-based citizen science program that has been operating for the last three years with funding from the National Science Foundation. The program has students developing SMART questions, designing investigations, collecting local data and analyzing that data. These skills build student’s understanding of science as well as deepen their mathematics skills in graphing and interpretation.
Over the last three years, 10 schools have participated including island and inland schools. More than 300 students have been involved as they use online tools to share ideas and data across the cohort.
The event last month was a culmination of their work. The students were full of excitement as they met with each other face-to-face and celebrated what it is like to participate in a citizen science program with students from other schools across the state.
As this cohort concludes, MMSA is seeking funding to continue this program well into the future.
