Roger Rose, a middle school science teacher living in Alpena, Arkansas, joined GLOBE in a video interview sharing his work and experiences with The GLOBE Program. In the interview, Roger explains how GLOBE has influenced his classroom and teaching.

Rose has been teaching for 19 years, and has been involved with GLOBE for over seven years. During the summer of 2023, Roger was a NASA Teacher Intern where he worked closely with GLOBE’s Clouds team at NASA Langley Research Center. 

Rose is a 5th and 6th grade math and science teacher, with the focus of his science classes being on Earth, life, and physical science. With soil, the atmosphere, and ecosystems being a large part of the topics covered in his teaching, Rose is able to connect his students to their environment through the GLOBE protocols. Rose mentions, “A lot of the GLOBE protocols really connect with my science standards, and things that I teach here in the classroom. So it works really well and kind of all comes together – and the kids can really get their hands into science.”

Rose describes how he and his students use GLOBE Observer to “catch” satellites. They receive notifications about a satellite crossing over their location, which is when they will go out to take observations. The students will take cloud observations, along with surface temperature as well. Roger describes this process as: “We look in the morning and see when a satellite is coming over…and we say ‘Let’s go catch a satellite.”  Rose also describes how his students have taken observations at solar noon recording maximums and minimums, and have taken water quality observations down at their local creek.

Living on his farm, Roger spends his time largely in the outdoors, caring for wildlife, and hiking by the river near his home. Roger also enjoys spending time with his family.  He has three children, four grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter, which keeps him busy as he is “teaching them to look at the sky.”

For those just getting into citizen science, Roger says: “Jump right in there… and start out with small steps. [GLOBE] Clouds is one of the easiest things to do, especially with the GLOBE Observer app. You can do that without having a lot of tools.”

Rose is inspired by those he has met through The GLOBE Program and their accomplishments. Roger met Lynne Harris Hehr (retired Director for the University of Arkansas Center for Mathematics and Science Education and the Arkansas NASA Educator Resource Center) through Northwest Arkansas Regional Science and Engineering Fair.  And through Lynne, Roger was introduced to The GLOBE Program. Rose comments on how Lynne’s passion for what she does at GLOBE and meeting similar passionate people, such as Dixon Butler (former Chief Scientist for GLOBE, now a consultant for NASA on the GLOBE Program), was truly inspirational for him. Additionally, his students continually inspire him with their joy, development, and growth.

Roger concludes with his favorite quote, “Zero is an important data point”, a quote from Lynne Harris Hehr. Especially within data collection, although zero is often considered to be arbitrary, it is important to observe the points where zero is the data.