HR: 0800h
AN: ED41C-08    [Abstracts]
TI: Auroras and Space Weather Celebrating the International Heliophysics Year in Classroom
AU: * Craig, N
EM: ncraig@ssl.berkeley.edu
AF: UC Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, 7 Gauss Way MC 7450, Berkeley, CA 94720- 7450, United States
AU: Peticolas, L M
EM: laura@ssl.berkeley.edu
AF: UC Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, 7 Gauss Way MC 7450, Berkeley, CA 94720- 7450, United States
AU: Angelopoulos, V
EM: vassilis@ssl.berkeley.edu
AF: UC Berkeley, Space Sciences Laboratory, 7 Gauss Way MC 7450, Berkeley, CA 94720- 7450, United States
AU: Thompson, B
EM: Barbara.J.Thompson@nasa.gov
AF: GSFC, Code 671, NASA GSFC, Greenbelt, MD 20771, United States
AB: 2007 Celebrates the International Heliophysics year and its outreach has a primary objective, to "demonstrate the beauty, relevance and significance of Space and Earth Science to the world." NASA's first five-satellite mission, THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms), was launched on February 17, 2007 and is to investigate a key mystery surrounding the dynamics of the auroras- when, where, and how are they triggered? When the five probes align perfectly over the North American continent- every four days - and with 20 ground stations in Northern Canada and Alaska with automated, all-sky cameras will document the auroras from Earth. To monitor the large-scale local effects of the currents in space, THEMIS Education and Outreach program has installed 10 ground magnetometers, instruments that measure Earth's magnetic field, in competitively selected rural schools around the country and receive data. The THEMIS Education and Outreach Program shares the IHY objective by bringing in this live local space weather data in the classrooms and engaging the teachers and students on authentic research in the classroom. The data are displayed on the school computer monitors as well as on the THEMIS E/PO website providing the local data to the science mission as well as schools. Teachers use the data to teach about the aurora not only in math and science, but also in Earth science, history and art. These students and their teachers are our ambassadors to rural America and share the excitement of learning and teaching with their regional teachers. We will share how authentic space science data related to Earth's magnetic field and auroras can be understood, researched, predicted and shared via the internet to any school around the globe that wished to be part of tracking solar storms. Complimenting IHY, World Space Week will take place from October 4-10th and this year. World Space week is "an international celebration of science and technology, and their contribution to the betterment of the human condition." THEMIS will take part in World Space Week as a feature science mission with its education program contributing materials to the project so that students around the world can learn more about Earth's magnetic field, magnetic storms and substorms, and beautiful auroras. To facilitate the use of some of our magnetism materials around the world, we will provide some of our activities in German and Spanish on the web.
UR: http:ds9.ssl.berkeley.edu/themis/classroom.html
DE: 0805 Elementary and secondary education
DE: 0820 Curriculum and laboratory design
DE: 0830 Teacher training
DE: 0855 Diversity
DE: 7524 Magnetic fields
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly