Finn Ward's test tube glowed with separate layers of green and orange-colored liquids.
How'd that happen? Tom Garrett, Sussex School director, asked the third-grader.
"We just kept adding color and it fizzed up," replied Ward, who was participating in a special third- and fourth-grade science session.
The students were learning how to test for water quality. Red colors indicate acids and blue/green colors are bases, Garrett explained.
Ward covered the opening and tipped the tube upside down and then back upright. The colors had combined into a green shade. Now what does that mean? Garrett asked.
With a little help, Ward learned that the coloration meant the liquid was a base, not an acid.
So it went last week as Sussex students trained to take part in a GLOBE project. GLOBE - or Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment - is a program begun in 1995 in which student and scientists worldwide share information about the environment.
Other projects at Sussex included: seventh- and eighth-graders learning to input data they'd collected into a special computer program; fifth- and sixth-graders setting controlled-grid matchstick fires to learn about their characteristics; and kindergarteners through second-graders planting seeds for the school's garden. Other groups learned how to measure rainfall, read temperatures and interpret cloud cover.
Garrett received instruction as a GLOBAL trainer last year but, because of a lack of equipment and time, couldn't put his training to work at Sussex until now.
Between 5,000 to 6,000 American schools now are part of the GLOBE program and 70 different countries participate in it.
University of Montana educators are among those who have been trained to participate in the GLOBE program. They became involved because forestry professor Steve Running uses satellite imagery to study global climate change and the GLOBE program to verify his research.
UM undergraduate students participated with the Sussex students to see how the kids would do with the program. Garrett also helped train teachers visiting UM from around the state on Friday.
The students make environmental observations at or near their schools that include information about tree and ground cover, temperature, precipitation, moisture and soil content. The data then are reported on the GLOBE's Internet site where scientists from around the world can use the data in their research. It also can be used to compare actual data to satellite images of Earth.
Those satellite images often are difficult to interpret, causing problems for scientists who, for example, can't tell whether a tree is deciduous and conifer.
"The students' 'ground-truth' photos can help the scientists determine the type of canopy cover - how much is there and what is there," Garrett said. "The satellite images can be double-checked."
"The kids, hopefully, will be excited working with real scientists," he added. "Everything used by GLOBE and the scientists has to be accurate, has to be right."
The students learn about chemistry and environmental issues. They even study the weather.
"It's a lot of great science," Garrett said.