HR: 1340h
AN: ED23A-0087    [Abstracts]
TI: MECSAT: Edge of Space Investigations for Minority Undergraduates
AU: * Austin, S
EM: shermane@verizon.net
AF: Medgar Evers College, CUNY Department of Physical, Environmental and Computer Sciences, 1150 Carroll Street, Brooklyn, NY 11225
AU: Vaughn, G
EM: gvaughn@mec.cuny.edu
AF: St. Francis College Computer Science Department, 180 Remsen Street, Brooklyn, NY 11201
AU: Johnson, L
EM: lpjohnson@nrts.mec.cuny.edu
AF: Medgar Evers College, CUNY Department of Physical, Environmental and Computer Sciences, 1150 Carroll Street, Brooklyn, NY 11225
AU: Brathwaite, K
EM: kevinb@mec.cuny.edu
AF: Manhattan Transition HS, 400 First Avenue, New York, NY 10010
AU: Amoa, K
EM: kamoa@mec.cuny.edu
AF: Medgar Evers College, CUNY Department of Physical, Environmental and Computer Sciences, 1150 Carroll Street, Brooklyn, NY 11225
AU: Flowers, J
EM: jflowers@mec.cuny.edu
AF: Medgar Evers College, CUNY Department of Physical, Environmental and Computer Sciences, 1150 Carroll Street, Brooklyn, NY 11225
AB: MECSAT is a scientific balloon student-based project to fly experimental payloads to altitudes of 35 kilometers or more and recover them for data analysis. Centered in an urban minority college, the project combines science, technology and field work and provides students with an "Edge of Space" laboratory to explore experiments related to weather, climatology, earth science and space science. In addition to the experiments, students participating in the project gain a deeper understanding of the meteorological conditions supporting launch activities, local-scale climatology and the importance of team work. Students duplicate the processes involved in the planning, developing timelines, building hardware, launch, recovery and data analysis as performed in NASA missions in Earth and Space Science. The project also stimulates their interest in scientific instrumentation and discovery, embedded controllers and communications. The project spans the undergraduate level including lower-level students. It is being integrated into existing curriculum as well as being assigned for standalone research projects. The project is supported by NASA/MUSPIN CUNY NRTS and NASA/MUCERPI NYC-SSRA awards.
DE: 0399 General or miscellaneous
SC: Education and Human Resourcese [ED]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting