On August 14, 2006, David Brooks participated in a GLOBE training workshop organized by Lisa Brown from Penn State, for teachers at NASA Explorer schools in Pennsylvania. Participants learned how to use the sun photometer developed for GLOBE by Dr. Brooks and his colleague, Forrest Mims, to measure aerosol optical thickness. He also showed participants how to use simple pyranometers to improve student understanding of how sunlight interacts with Earth's atmosphere.

Most of the participants teach in urban schools like Shaw Middle School, so it is especially important to adapt GLOBE measurements to urban settings. The aerosol optical thickness measurements are ideal for urban schools because they can be done anywhere there is an unobstructed view of the sun.

For more information on the GLOBE training program and Dr. Brooks' research, please visit http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~brooksdr/DRB_web_page/