Applications Now Open to Request Location-Specific Data from GLOBE Observer

GLOBE Observer, the app of the Global Learning and Observation to Benefit the Environment (GLOBE) Program, invites anyone who wants to (in 120+ GLOBE countries) to make environmental observations that complement NASA satellite observations to help scientists studying Earth and the global environment. In February 2024, the GLOBE Observer team formally released a new data request function in the app to help communities and scientists ask GLOBE volunteers for observations in a specific location.

The feature was tested in 2023 during the NASA Moon Tree Quest, in which a team of scientists and educators from NASA and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service asked volunteers to find the surviving Apollo Moon Trees and measure their height. The app alerted volunteers when they were within about 25 kilometers of a known Moon Tree with the location of the tree and a request to measure it. Other early test projects asked volunteers to document ice in a river basin in Alaska and to map land cover on a university campus – both with the app’s Land Cover tool.

Applications are now open for any scientist, community leader, or educator in the United States to request clouds, mosquito habitat, land cover, or tree data from GLOBE volunteers.

GLOBE Observer is part of the NASA Earth Science Education Collaborative (NESEC), which is supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number NNX16AE28A and is part of NASA’s Science Activation Portfolio.