Student Research Symposia:
After much deliberation, the U.S. GLOBE Office, in consultation with event sponsors NASA and YLACES, has decided to cancel the 2021 Student Research Symposia. This decision was not an easy one. Many GLOBE Partners, who support teachers and organize the regional events, let us know that their institutions and potential locations could not commit to hosting and were limiting travel and events into the future. Several teachers let us know that their schools were not supporting field trips and some were reverting back or remaining virtual until an unforeseeable date. These circumstances, and the fact we would need to be well into planning events by this point, led us to make the decision to cancel in-person events.
On 17 September 2020, we held an open forum and created a Padlet (https://padlet.com/usglobecc/SRS2021orwhat) that captured ideas from the community about SRS 2021. After considering several options, including a virtual Student Research Symposia, we determined that an alternative event was not feasible. A virtual Student Research Symposia, even if later in the school year, would be very similar in format, participants and reviewers/judges to the International Virtual Science Symposia (IVSS). To create a new type of event for just this year, which would complement rather than compete with IVSS, would require a significant amount of time and resources that we may not be able to maintain into the future, once we are able to hold in-person events.
For the 2020-2021 academic year, we will be focusing on increasing the numbers and engagement level of the U.S. STEM professionals in the GLOBE International STEM Network (GISN). This will involve:
- exploring collaboration tools, resources and promising practices on creating and maintaining high-quality student-scientist interactions;
- refining and updating the GISN database to better match students/teachers with STEM professionals from diverse backgrounds; and,
- creating or instituting systems for meeting management and relationship building to increase the accessibility of outreach activities.
These efforts will strengthen the number and quality of mentorship relationships between students and teachers and STEM professionals in the United States. The outcomes from this work will also benefit students who are in the process of carrying out research and writing reports for the 2021 International Virtual Science Symposium.
This was a hard decision, but given the current circumstances in these uncertain times, focusing on making connections between students, teachers and STEM professionals will benefit the Student Research Symposia and their participants into the future. We see this as an opportunity to leverage the time we would have spent planning a one-year substitute event for a project that will yield long-term benefits.
Stay tuned for more details.
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