Phenology (Seasonal Effects)

Perceiving Earth as a system begins when we first feel warmth from sunshine or get wet stand¬ing in the rain. Understanding Earth as a system requires a quantitative exploration of the connections among all parts (atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and bio¬sphere) of the system. The measurements of the GLOBE Programme provide students with the means to begin this exploration for themselves.

The processes comprising the global environ¬ment are interconnected. Many of the major environmental issues of our time have driven scientists to study how these connections oper¬ate on a global basis - to understand the Earth as a system.

Scientists do not know all the Earth system con¬nections yet, but they keep working to gain a more complete understanding. As students conduct the full range of GLOBE measurements, they should gain a perception that the environ¬ment is the result of interplay among many processes that take place locally, regionally, and globally on time scales ranging from seconds to centuries. This is a key lesson. The activities in this study area help students learn this as they study annual variations in environmental parameters and examine the connections among the various phenomena measured on local, regional, and global spatial scales.

Phenology is the study of living organisms’ response to seasonal changes in their environment. Change in the period between green-up and senes¬cence, often synonymous with the growing season, may be an indication of global climate change. Broad-area estimates of the lengths of growing seasons are primarily based on satellite data. How¬ever, remote sensing estimates from satellites are not exact because the actual behaviour of the plants must be inferred from the collective appearance of their foliage. GLOBE student observations will help scientists validate their estimates of global greenness values that they derive using satellite data. Monitoring the length of the growing season is important for society so that it can better adapt to variations in the length of the growing season and to other impacts of cli¬mate change, which may affect food production, economic growth, and human health.

We are currently planning to develop some New Zealand-specific examples for this study unit. We hope these will become available sometime soon.

Project Ideas

Climate change is in the news – but what can you do in your school to measure it? Check out how GLOBE UK are using green-up and bud burst activities to learn more about Earth.

GLOBE PowerPoint Presentations and Data Sheets

These are the PowerPoint (PPT) presentations that have been used in GLOBE workshops. They are useful for helping you to understand the various phenology protocols.