Space Physics in the Undergraduate Curriculum II Posters
Presiding: I Doxas, University of Colorado; D Knipp, U.S. Air Force Academy
ED13B-01 1330h
Three-Lesson Introduction of Space Weather to Meteorology Students
During the past four years a short sequence in space weather has been introduced to meteorology students at University of Massachusetts (UMASS) Lowell. The three-sequence, each geared toward a 45 min lecture period, introduces junior meteorology majors to 1) Regions in space and the drivers of space weather; 2) Impacts of space weather; and 3) Observing and Predicting Space Weather. The assumed audience possesses a general science background, but little knowledge of college level electromagnetism. The objectives of this space weather unit, equivalent to one chapter in a meteorology course text, is to introduce students to the basic terminology used in space weather and to provide conceptual material about how space weather can impact everyday life and technology systems and the knowledge resources available. The University of Michigan Space Physics Research Laboratory is developing a set of Sun-to-Earth graphics and visualizations to support this effort. We will present the curriculum and supporting graphics and describe the challenges in integrating this material into a survey meteorology course.
ED13B-02 1330h
Developing a Space Weather Policy Course
Space weather is a field where policy, societal, and economic aspects are becoming increasingly important as our society becomes more dependent on activities and technology that are affected by conditions in the space environment. It is important that present and future scientists are prepared to fully participate in the challenging opportunities that lie ahead, including communicating to policy makers, making sound public policy decisions, and communicating science to the public. One way of providing a better foundation is to integrate policy and science at universities. This has been a challenge, or even absent in university science departments. While some universities offer science policy courses on a broad scale, offering policy courses catered to science students has been a major challenge for various reasons (i.e., lack of interdisciplinary courses, discouragement from professors, need to fulfill necessary degree requirements, professor not comfortable with introducing policy topics). This presentation will discuss a project at the American Meteorological Society Policy Program aimed at integrating policy into atmospheric and space physics curricula. The focus will be on an "Introduction to Science Policy: Space Weather and Meteorology" pilot course being taught at George Mason University, School of Computational Sciences. Lessons learned, student feedback, and ways of introducing policy topics will be discussed.
ED13B-03 1330h
Synoptic examples of solar-terrestrial storming events for space weather education
With the ever-growing dependence on space based systems as part of modern society's day-to-day infrastructure, space weather courses are playing an increasingly important role in many educational venues. Because courses of this nature are often conducted as survey courses, bounding the scope and the level of depth of material to be covered in any given course remains a challenge. Often students may "lose the forest for the trees;" that is, they may focus on the details of individual processes to the point where it is difficult to grasp the connections between processes that are germane to a complete understanding of space weather. With this paper, the authors present a set of examples of candidate storms that we believe are effective at tying together storms on the sun with those in the near-earth space environment and the resulting space weather effects on manmade systems. We propose that it would be most appropriate to present these so-called synoptic storm studies toward the end of the course. The idea is to build on the understanding of specific processes that have been learned throughout the course. Each study would begin with a storm on the sun, and then progress through the modification of the solar wind due to the solar storm, then the interaction between the solar wind and the earth's magnetosphere, ionosphere, upper atmosphere, and then finally any ground-based processes. The study would conclude with the effects on man-made systems. The candidate studies that will be covered in the talk include the May 1989 storm that resulted in massive power outages in Canada, the May 1998 compound storm, and the October 2004 Halloween storms that produced the largest x-ray flares on record to date.
ED13B-04 1330h
Teaching Solar and Space Physics to Undergraduates at Boston University
The Department of Astronomy at Boston University offers a one-semester advanced undergraduate course entitled Solar and Space Physics (AS414). The course is open to students who have completed two years of college physics or who have seen equivalent material by studying engineering. The course is taken primarily by students majoring in physics or astronomy and by engineering students who can use it to fulfill a technical elective. The course treats the usual topics covered in an introductory space physics course: the sun, the solar wind, planetary atmospheres, ionospheres and magnetospheres, informed by discussions of particle motion and simple plasma physics. The course has benefited from methodologies introduced from the CISM Space Weather Summer School, which is aimed at beginning graduate students. In particular the course ends with the students interpreting real Sun-to-Earth data from a space weather event.
ED13B-05 1330h
Web Based Tools for Research and Teaching
The Solar System Collaboratory is a web based set of tools that has been used for the past seven years in introductory classes in Astronomy, Physics, Environmental Science, and Engineering. The present paper will discuss the integration into the tool set of a recently developed Magnetospheric package. The package is written in Java 3D, and has a modular design, so that different models and datasets, both real-time and historical, can be seamlessly compared using a variety of goodness-of-fit measures. The package is used both in research and education at the undergraduate as well as secondary level. In addition to the science components, the package includes web based tools for conceptual student assessment, as well as resources for teachers, and videotaped case studies of classroom interactions.
ED13B-06 1330h
FalconSAT-2 -- A Small Satellite in Support of Sun-Earth Science Education
The United States Air Force Academy has designed, built and tested the FalconSat-2 (FS-2) satellite in support of the Air Force Communications/Navigation Outage Forecast System (C/NOFS) mission. FalconSat-2 is currently scheduled for launch July 2005. The main payload is a novel Miniaturized Electrostatic Analyzer (MESA), which provides energy spectra of the ionospheric thermal plasma. Data from MESA will be cross calibrated with a traditional Retarding Potential Analyzer (RPA). Both data sets will be used to observe changes in the ionospheric density and temperature in the presence of plasma density depletions known to be associated with communication/navigation outages. This talk details how construction of a real satellite, with real science goals, ties together disparate ideas across different disciplines to bring to life Sun-Earth connections to the undergraduate student.