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SUNY Fredonia will host the annual meeting of NASA GLOBE, an international science and education program that focuses on advancing scientific literacy and building connections among its members who are passionate about the environment, from July 15 to July 18.

Attendees, known as country coordinators, are mostly government officials who have some connection to education, explained SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor Michael Jabot, who has been involved with GLOBE since 1998. 

The meeting, which will also draw some 20 NASA representatives, is devoted to sharing development initiatives within the organization’s 127 members and planning future partnerships. NASA’s associate director for science research will also attend.

SUNY Fredonia’s College Lodge will host a separate outreach experience for 60 international students. They will hold their activities and also reside at the lodge. “This will be the best student representation that we’ve had,” Dr. Jabot noted. Bhutan and Jordan will be among the countries represented by students.

The campus is ideally suited to host this year’s meeting, whose theme is “The Year of Climate and Carbon,” due to its proximity to the Great Lakes and Niagara Falls, explained Jabot, who is also the director of the Institute for Research in Science Teaching and a NASA Earth Ambassador. NASA reached out to Jabot to see if SUNY Fredonia could host this year’s meeting. 

Sessions will be held in the Williams Center and some of the 160 attendees will stay at University Commons. The event will generate a significant amount of outside revenue for the university, Jabot noted.

This will be the first time SUNY Fredonia, a longtime partner with the NASA GLOBE program, has hosted the organization’s annual program meeting. “An enormous amount of work goes into these annual meetings,” Jabot said. “They have been held around the world, so this is a unique opportunity for our campus.”