Sun-Earth Connection Science with Alaska Teachers

By Jim Thieman

In November several members of the Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF), together with Education and Outreach staff from the Solar Terrestrial Probes/Living with a Star program, traveled to Anchorage, Alaska, to give a number of workshops for teachers in Alaskan school systems. The Alaska teachers and their students will be an important part of the activities planned for the Sun-Earth Day, March 18, 2003 (http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/sunearthday/2003/).

One aspect of this celebration of Sun-Earth Connection science will be the Student Observation Network (SON) (http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/sunearthday/2003/networkintro.htm) The idea of the SON is to have students first looking for sunspot activity on the Sun using projected images of the Sun from telescopes, specially built equipment called "Sunspotters," or recent images of the Sun found in a number of places on the web. Students would determine which sunspot groups are liable to be active and indicate this by sending in the sunspot group numbers to a central location where the sunspot group mentioned most often would be displayed for all to see on a website.

The students would monitor sunspot activity through the use of radio telescopes via the Radio JOVE project. They can monitor the output of remote radio telescopes or build their own from an inexpensive kit if they wish to become more involved. When the students see solar-related activity they would make this known to a central web site, and that site would display an "activity meter" for all to see.

Students would also be encouraged to build their own inexpensive magnetometer and watch for the subtle changes in the Earth's magnetic field caused by solar storm activity. Again they would let a central site know if they were seeing unusual variations in the Earth's magnetic field perhaps caused by plasma from a solar storm enveloping the Earth's field. Again there would be an "activity meter" at the central site indicating the amount of magnetic activity reported.

Finally there are students serving as "auroral friends." These are students in northern latitudes who report when they see auroral activity in their area at night. Large amounts of activity would be indicated on the central website as well. The students and teachers in Alaska are especially pivotal to this part of SON. Thus, three workshops were held in Alaska for teachers from elementary through high school training them in all aspects of the plans for SON, but emphasizing the contributions that the Alaskan schools can make.

With SON it is intended that students make the Sun-Earth Connection for themselves. In putting together the pieces of this puzzle they will see that events at the Sun can influence what we experience on Earth. We realize that it may be rare that there is a clear indication of activity from the Sun carrying through to obvious effects on the Earth, but that is part of science and understanding that cause and effect may be subtle. The important part of SON is learning about Sun-Earth Connection science through experiential participation.

 

Troy Cline of SECEF explains magnetic field activities to Alaskan educators.