The GLOBE malaria project: a unique student/teacher/scientist partnership

The GLOBE Madagascar Malaria Project is an exciting new initiative aimed at learning more about malaria and finding ways to educate the community to assist in combating this mosquito-borne disease. Madagascar schools, scientists, health department officials, government officials including the Minister of Education, and others, have given their support to this project that links GLOBE hydrology and atmospheric data with mosquito larval occurrence and identification. In the context of environmental/Earth science education, the issues related to malaria can be viewed as a unique opportunity for developing scientist/teacher/student partnerships that attack a real-world problem with the resources that only a widely dispersed network of participants, such as GLOBE educators, students and scientists can provide. Local identification of mosquito breeding/hatching sites is critical because mosquitoes tend to stay within a few kilometers of their hatching sites. In developing countries such as Madagascar, it is entirely possible that GLOBE schools in remote locations could provide the only regular source of these kinds of data. Once the Madagascar pilot study is complete, this project can be expanded to the continent of Africa and to other parts of the world.

To date, Madagascar scientists and educators have drafted and field tested science and education materials for teachers and students. The materials are currently under revision based on the initial evaluations gleaned from field testing. The larval collection and identification protocols will be implemented in schools the next school year along with other GLOBE protocols that provide a more complete picture of the environmental conditions controlling mosquito breeding. The data collected will be made available to the scientific and public health community and used to promote student research. Results from this project can be used to increase public awareness of malaria in participants' communities and to provide better information for guiding effective mitigation strategies.