Everyone could recall seeing rain on the horizon but not getting rain on their property.  

Why Spotty Rain?

Spotty Rain is a place to wonder about the relationship between people (land and livelihood) and water (rain and groundwater) in times of agricultural drought.​ ​ We hope you use this website to learn more about drought, weather, and climate in your area.  Recent long term drought in the Southern High Plains greatly impacted the livelihood, agricultural practices, and the land management of ranchers and farmers.   I was there in 2014 to witness it and collect stories from agriculturalists in Cimarron County, OK and Union County, NM.  In periods of extended drought, the spatial variability of precipitation (that it is spotty!) is a practical barrier to individual farm management and decision-making and a technical barrier to community-level planning.  Volunteer drought monitors (citizens like you!) provide more accurate micro-level precipitation and soil moisture information.  Scientists, in turn, could use this information to better predict where and when devastating droughts may occur.   ​

You know a lot about your land, the weather, and how to get by in droughthy times.  Please join your neighbors in by becoming a Drought Monitor.

 Dr. Nicole M. Colston
 Assistant Research Professor, Center for Research on STEM Teaching & Learning
 Oklahoma State University
 nicole.colston@okstate.edu

Our Team

Dr. Nicole M. Colston, Co-principal Investigator, Center for Research on STEM Teaching and Learning.

Dr. Tutaleni I. Asino,  Co-principal Investigator, Educational Technology.

Maryam Movahedinia, Graduate Research Assistant, Environmental Science.

Ayo Ibukun, Graduate Research Assistant, Educational Technology.

Meghan Martin, Graduate Research Assistant, Environmental Science.

Acknowledgments

This website has generously been funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) SEES Fellowship (SMA-1415368) and NSF Advancements in Informal STEM Learning project (DRL-1811506)  awarded to Oklahoma State University.  Any opinion, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this website are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.
​
Many thanks to collaborators and mentors Jacqueline Vadjunec & Todd Fagin from National Science Foundation project (#CMMI-1266381) "Land System Vulnerability and Resilience to Drought: A Multi-Scale, Comparative Analysis of Public and Private Lands in the American West." 

Publications

• Colston, N., Vadjunec, J., & Fagin, T. (2018). It is always dry here: Examining perceptions about drought and climate change in the Southern High Plains. Environmental Communication.
• Colston, N., Vadjunec, J.M. & Wakeford, T. (2015). Exploring the entry points for citizen science in urban sustainability initiatives. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 17, 66-71.
• Fagin, T. D., Vadjunec, J. M., Colston, N. M., Wenger, K., & Graham, A. (2016). Land tenure and landscape change: A comparison of public-private lands in the southern High   Plains. Ecological Processes, 5(12), 1-14. 

Related presentations

• CoCoRaHS in schools: Resources for drought monitoring. (2017). Oklahoma State University STEM Teacher Institute. Stillwater, Oklahoma.
• Spotty Rain: An online drought monitoring campaign in the Southern High Plains. (2017). 2nd Biannual Citizen Science Association Conference.  Twin Cities, Minnesota.​
• Adapting to drought in the southern High Plains: A comparative analysis of drought perceptions and adaptive strategies. 36th Annual Oklahoma Governor's Water Symposium and Research Symposium. Norman, Oklahoma.
  
• Using citizen science to weather Oklahoma’s extremes: Designing and evaluating the impact of an online drought monitoring campaign. (2016). 37th Annual Oklahoma Governor's Water Symposium and Research Symposium.  Norman, Oklahoma.
• Citizen weather monitoring: An intro to CoCoRaHS  (2015). Oklahoma State University STEM Teacher Institute. Stillwater, Oklahoma.​