themis swg,12/18/04 themis e/po themis e/po n. craig, l. m. peticolas, v. angelopoulos url: a quest...

THEMIS E/PO THEMIS SWG,12/18/04

THEMIS E/PO

N. Craig, L. M. Peticolas, V. Angelopoulos

URL: http://ds9.ssl.berkeley.edu/themis

A Quest to Understand the Onset of Auroral Substorms


Overall Management and Partnership Structure for THEMIS E/PO

.

Principal Investigator Vassilis Angelopoulos

EPO Science Content AdvisorsJ. Bonnell, C. Russell, S. Mende

Systems and office support (part time from SECEF)

E/PO Administrative Coordinator

Amy Shutkin (part time from sprg)

EPO LeadNahide Craig

EPO SpecialistLaura Peticolas

Montana State Space Grant Donna Minton

Graphic Designer

Teacher ConsultantsTom Sheffler &

Lonny VillalobosL. H. S

Carolyn Willard Allan Gould

10 GEONS Teachers

Cornerstone Eval. Assoc.

Allyson Walker

Astronomy Café Sten Odenwald

SACNASRamon Lopez

Alaska GBOsMcGrath &

Kiana Schools

UCLA GMAG


• Place research-grade magnetometers in 10 schools around U.S. {Geomagnetic Event Observation Network by Students (GEONS) }

• Inspire these communities

• Provide professional development, lesson plans, and data (via web and on site) to the GEONS teachers regularly

• Use this GEONS program as a test-bed to reach more teachers at professional development workshopsat local, regional, and national science teacher conferences

• Use this GEONS program and data web developments to provide data to the Student Observation Network (SON) program to reach more teachers via the web.

Formal Education


Magnetometer Schools in 10 States

Petersburg City Schools: Vic Trautman Petersburg, AlaskaChippewa Hills High School: Cris DeWolf Remus, MichiganHot Springs High School: Sean Estill Hot Springs, MontanaWestern Nevada Community College: Robert Collier Carson City, NevadaFort Yates Public School: Daryl Brahos Fort Yates, North DakotaUkiah School: Laura Orr Ukiah, Oregon Northern Bedford County High School: Keith Little Loysburg, PennsylvaniaRed Cloud High School: Wendell Gehman Pine Ridge, South DakotaShawano Community High School: Wendy Esch Shawano, WisconsinNorth County Union Jr. High School: Holly Willey Derby,Vermont

Mags installed


Fluxgate Magnetometer Setup

Fluxgate Sensor Installed in Ground Carson City

Fluxgate Magnetometer Electronics Circuit Board EPO Magnetometer Chassis Atop Magnetic Shield Calibration System

UCLA provides technical users’ manuals along with GMAG unit– Installed five magnetometers in Summer ’04, and will install five in Summer ’05

– Will provide ground data processing, data access, and archiving procedures

– Will provide common data packets from all sites by end of December


Carson City Magnetometer Installation

Special workforce from SSL! Magnetometer sensor cable in the trench David attaching GPS receiver to a pipe. Our teacher Terry, with his

feathery friend, gave moral support!

Magnetometer in the classroom David, hooking the monitor to its computer Carson City FIRST Data!


EPO Magnetometer Data Flow

Non-Validated Data

UCLA

EPO #1 EPO #2 EPO #3 EPO #10

Internet

UC Berkeley

Validated Data

U of Alberta

Archival

GBO #1

GBO #2

U Calgary

Non-Validated Data

Non-Validated Data


Communications, Dissemination since April 2004

• Monthly E/PO partners telecon• YAHOO site established for GEONS Teachers

– Good tool for communication and sharing information– Weekly exchanges on auroras, updates, installations– Teacher-to-teacher postings– Lessons of the week

• Teacher Professional Development– NSTA Teacher Workshop - April, Atlanta, GA– GEONS Workshop - July Berkeley, CA– CSTA Workshop - 84 teachers– NASA w/ LWS – Anchorage 300 teachers +– AISES –Anchorage - 10 teachers– SACNAS – 22 teachers– Idaho Falls 7,000 students, 300 teachers,

3 day looong “Expo”


Good Press, Conferences, and a Patch

PRESS RELEASE SENT TO SCHOOLS FOR THEIR LOCAL NEWSPAPERS

– Bismarck Tribune - Fort Yates E/PO Magnetometers: April 14, Bismarck ND– WESTWIND - Western Nevada Community College Newsletter: Sept.

“Carson City Students, WNCC, NASA Partner to study Northern Lights”“High school and middle school students in CC will collaborate in a unique scientific investigation to

understand the onset of auroral substorms, little understood events that break up the Aurora Borealis into beautiful and mysterious dancing lights.”

– Rapid City Journal – Oct. 11, “Red Cloud to study northern lights”PINE RIDGE – “A new piece of equipment that will help scientists study the colorful northern lights is to

arrive Thursday at Red Cloud Indian School. Red Cloud is one of 10 schools in the nation and the only South Dakota school selected to receive a $20,000 magnetometer installation. The magnetometer will measure changes in the Earth's invisible magnetic field, according to a school news release. Wendell Gehman, a high school science teacher at Red Cloud, submitted the proposal that resulted in Red Cloud's selection for the THEMIS program. Gehman will use the information collected by the magnetometer and accompanying equipment in his science classes. Students at Red Cloud High School will help install the equipment Thursday.”

– The Nevada Appeal – Oct. 15, “Kids attracted to science project like magnet”“The students are studying magnetism as part of their involvement with a NASA project that examines the

interaction of solar storms and Earth’s magnetosphere.”CONFERENCES

– Talk @ AGU May, Montreal – “THEMIS Ground-based magnetometer arrays and their education and public outreach potential ”

– Poster @ AAS – June, Denver –“ Education and Public Outreach with THEMIS Ground-based research grade magnetometers”

– Poster @AGU – December, SF – “Partners and Networks in the THEMIS E/PO program”

THEMIS PATCH - designed and printed 10,000 copies for distribution


Feedback from teachersINSPIRATIONAL - ONLY NASA CAN

“We also recently got some positive press from our local paper as well. They did a front page article a few weeks ago about our involvement with the mission. They did mess up on the science a bit though, saying that the magnetometer detected changes in our atmosphere rather than in the magnetosphere!

This really opened some of my students eyes. They have had the impression (possibly passed on from parents who attended in troubled times when we had labor disputes and funding problems) that we are a 2nd rate school. Now they are beginning to see that they can be as good a school as any - if they take advantage of the opportunities that are open to them.”

Chris De Wolf, GEONS teacherChippewa Hills High School. Remus MI


In Progress

• AAPT in January• Installation of the remaining 5 E/PO Magnetometers• Carson City 2nd GEONS Workshop - 2005 June• NEW GEMS Center @ Carson City, NV - 2005 June• Collaborating w/ NASA E/PO proposals related to

magnetometers• Evaluator started working w/ teacher interviews

• WORKSHOPS February Fresno State TeachersTeacher Workshop at

SSL• WORKSHOP March Idaho Falls 2 District

Teacher Workshop?• WORKSHOP April Cal Day• WORKSHOP May Teacher Workshop at

SSL• WORKSHOPS June GEONS II workshop

CC GEMS Workshop

Exploring Magnetism Teachers Guide – “exemplary material”

First printing 5,000 copies, March Updated 2nd printing 10,000 copies for CORE, November

themis swg,12/18/04 themis e/po themis e/po n. craig, l. m. peticolas, v. angelopoulos url: a quest...

Documents