Bringing the Sun to Earth: Solar and Sun-Earth Science Education and Public Outreach Efforts III
Presiding: D K Scherrer, Stanford University; D McKenzie, Montana State University
SH14A-01 INVITED 15:30h
Sun-Earth Day 2005: Ancient Observatories: Timeless Knowledge
The NASA Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF) annually promotes an event called Sun-Earth Day. For Sun-Earth Day 2005 SECEF has selected a theme called "Ancient Observatories: Timeless Knowledge. This year's Sun-Earth Day theme is your ticket to a fascinating journey through time as we explore centuries of sun watching by a great variety of cultures. From ancient solar motion tracking to modern solar activity monitoring the Sun has always occupied an important spot in mankind's quest to understand the Universe. Sun-Earth Day events usually are centered on the spring equinox around March 21, but this year there has already been a webcast from the San Francisco Exploratorium and the Native American ruins at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico on the day of winter solstice 2004. There will be another webcast on March 20 live from Chichen Itza, Mexico highlighting the solar alignment that makes a serpent appear on one of the ancient pyramids. The website http://sunearthday.nasa.gov has been developed to provide the necessary resources and opportunities for participation by scientists and educators in giving school or general public programs about Sun-Earth Day. The goal is to involve as much of the student population and the public in this event as possible and to help them understand the importance of the Sun for ancient and modern peoples. Through engaging activities available on the website, classrooms and museums can create their own event or participate in one of the opportunities we make available. Scientists, educators, amateur astronomers, and museums are invited to register on the website to receive a free packet of materials about Sun-Earth Day for use in making presentations or programs about the event. Past and future Sun-Earth Days will be discussed as well.
http://sunearthday.nasa.gov
SH14A-02 INVITED 15:50h
Space Weather Sonification for scientists, educators, and musicians
The Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) Mission will be launched in 2006 in order to understand the origin and consequences of Coronal Mass Ejections (CME's). Two spacecrafts will orbit the Sun with instruments imaging the Sun and instruments measuring in-situ particle and fields. In preparation for the data gathered by the STEREO instruments, we have developed software to convert this space weather data into sound, a process known as sonification. We will show how this sonification project has been adapted to serve not only educators and the public wanting to hear data gathered from space, but also to serve the needs of scientists and musicians. Three separate software programs have been created in the Max/MSP programming language to map bins of data to musical sounds. This mapping varies from converting data to simple frequencies to converting the data to complicated filtered musical resonances. One program is designed for use in the classroom as well as for use as a tutorial for those new to sonification. A second program is designed for use by scientists who want to study data from the two STEREO spacecraft. And a third program is designed for use by musicians to use space weather data as an input to musical compositions. This project is part of the Education and Public Outreach (E/PO) component of the STEREO In-situ Measurements of Particles and CME Transients (IMPACT) suite of seven instruments with additional support from the STEREO/WAVES instrument suite.
http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/impact/k-12.html
SH14A-03 16:10h
STEREO/Waves Education and Public Outreach
We present the education and public outreach plan and activities of the STEREO Waves (aka SWAVES) investigation. SWAVES measures radio emissions from the solar corona, interplanetary medium, and terrestrial magnetosphere, as well as in situ waves in the solar wind. In addition to the web site components that display stereo/multi-spacecraft data in a graphical form and explain the science and instruments, we will focus on the following three areas of EPO: class-room demonstrations using models of the STEREO spacecraft with battery powered radio receivers (and speakers) to illustrate spacecraft radio direction finding, teacher developed and tested class-room activities using SWAVES solar radio observations to motivate geometry and trigonometry, and sound-based delivery of characteristic radio and plasma wave events from the SWAVES web site for accessibility and esthetic reasons. Examples of each element will be demonstrated.
SH14A-04 16:25h
The International Heliophysical Year (IHY): A Global Approach to Sun-Earth Science Education and Public Outreach (E/PO).
Fifty years after the International Geophysical Year (IGY) 1957, the world's science community will again come together for an international program of scientific collaboration: the International Heliophysical Year (IHY) 2007 . This time, research will extend out into the Heliosphere to focus on solar-terrestrial interactions. With over 300 scientists worldwide signed up to participate, IHY provides a unique opportunity to the international science community to reach out to the public around the world. IHY is well placed to stimulate global interest and participation in science and inspire a new generation of scientists and engineers.
http://ihy.gsfc.nasa.gov
SH14A-05 16:40h
Sun-Earth Connection Education and Public Outreach Activities in the Washington. DC Metropolitan Area
One of the primary education and public outreach activities we have been involved in over the last few years, is a project sponsored by the South East Regional Clearing House (SERCH), a NASA EPO broker-facilitator, to support EPO activities related to NASA's Office of Space Science research themes; specifically (1) The Sun-Earth Connection; (2) Exploration of the Solar System; (3) Astronomical Search for Origins; and (4) Structure and Evolution of the Universe. The grant was by way of the DC Space Grant Consortium, of which S.M.A.R.T. is an affiliate. The objectives of the grant were to provide educational materials and activities related to these themes, in DC Public Schools (and other formal, as well as informal, educational organizations, in the DC metropolitan area). We have also given presentations on these topics in informal educational venues and at universities. The objectives of our SERCH grant included production of videos, as well as CD copies of presentation documents, for use in the schools. Of particular note is that students, and their teachers, are active participants in the videos. The Sun-Earth Connection theme is the one we have focused on initially. Two DC schools, Anacostia Senior High School and Backus Middle School, were participants in the video production. In addition, students working during the summers as Science and Engineering Apprentice Program (SEAP) students at the Naval Research Laboratory participated in some of the videos and in developing and testing instruments used in the EPO activities. Also, the SEC presentations have been used in invited talks on several occasions as part of NRL's Community Outreach activities.