GLOBE Studies at Nuuksia National Park

On Wednesday the GLE conference participants took buses to Nuuksia National Park, about an hour north of Helsinki.  Beautiful and natural, the park provided a challenging setting for the GLOBE games, in which students hiked extensively and worked with scientists to perform the GLOBE environmental  measurements.  Student teams reflected the international character of the conference:  Mary and Vinny worked with students from Norway, California, Greece, and Finland. 

 
Our GLOBE games Team:  Mary, Vinny, Sven, Sarah, Burdau, and Anna.

We hiked for about 3 hours to the Land Cover measurement site, perched on a rocky outcropping on a pristine lake. Our group used a Global Positioning System (GPS) to find our latitude and longitude, then used satellite imagery to classify our location.

Vinny gets some individual attention as he compares a map with satellite imagery of the Nuuksia area.  Back home at their schools students use these techniques for describing the local environment to help scientists interpret satellite images of their own areas.

We hike for MILES through Nuuksia!   Or maybe it'd be better to say KILOMETERS! since that's more commonly used in Finland.

 

.......and not all of it was easy, or even dry!   Here we cross a marshy area using logs and sticks to avoid the mud and water.  Forget it guys.... EVERYONE had wet feet before we got out of this one!

Hey Brian - keep that camera dry!  (Brian Garcia, KidsGLOBE). On top of everything else, it suddenly had begun to rain. In some parts of the forest students saw hail as big as marbles!
 

Vinny pours water into a Filtration Ring (cut from 2 coffee cans), designed to test how quickly rainwater percolates down into the soil.  The students found that the sandy forest soil absorb rainwater very well, compared with heavier soils or pavement which may cause rainwater to run off quckly over the surface into streams and rivers, sometimes contributing to flooding.
 

 
 
 
Data  such as these soil  characteristics, land cover and atmospheric measurements were collected from all over the forest by GLE students.  Results were reported back to participants on Friday morning by the GLOBE scientists.  The report was very positive- the environment of Nuuksia is in great shape!

 
Photo credit: Mrs. Geraldine Jones, Mississippi School for the Deaf, Jackson, MS.

A sudden rainstorm and hail in the late afternoon left everyone very wet and cold. Students returned to the camp area to warm themselves around this wonderful fireplace in one of the small camp buildings. There wasn't a lot of extra room in there, but no body seemed to mind the close quarters!