On
Sunday June 9, thirty-two undergraduate students from across the United States will
arrive in California for the fifth annual Student Airborne Research Program
(SARP). The thirty-two students hail from thirty-two colleges and universities in twenty-two states and
Puerto Rico.
The majors of the students in this
interdisciplinary group cover a wide range of scientific, mathematical, and
engineering disciplines. Students were competitively selected based on
their outstanding academic performance, future career plans, ability to work in
teams, and interest in Earth system science. One of the great strengths
of SARP is that students from different disciplines learn from each other and
work together toward common research goals. Students also form lasting
personal and professional relationships that they will carry into their future
careers.
The
first two weeks of the program will take place at the Dryden Aircraft Operations
Facility (DAOF), where students will be introduced to NASA’s Earth Science
research programs by NASA scientists, engineers, and program managers and by university
faculty members. Students will then fly
onboard NASA’s DC-8 airborne laboratory where they will measure pollution and
air-quality in the Los Angeles basin and in California’s Central Valley, and
use remote sensing instruments to study forest ecology in the Sierra Nevada
Mountains and ocean biology along the California coast. In addition to airborne
data collection, students will take measurements at field sites.
The
final six weeks of the program will take place at the University of California,
Irvine where students will analyze and interpret the data they collected
onboard the aircraft. At the conclusion
of the program, each student will deliver a final presentation on his/her
results and conclusions. Many students
in the past have gone on to present their research at conferences such as the
American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in San Francisco.
For
frequent updates on the program throughout the summer, check out the NASA SARP
blog at
http://blogs.nasa.gov/cm/blog/SARP
One hundred and sixty-four K-12 classrooms from across the United
States and Chile with 3030 total students participated in online chats with
Airborne Science Program mission personnel in the field during the 2012/2013
school year.
Mission Tools Suite for Education is a unique website that allows students
and teachers to connect directly with ongoing Airborne Science research
campaigns. The Mission Tools Suite (MTS) is web-based software used by
mission personnel to monitor and assist with real-time decision making during
the course of an Airborne Science mission. The Airborne Science Program
has created a scaled down version of the tool called MTS for Education (MTSE),
which is aimed at supporting core K-12 classroom science curriculum.
The NASA Airborne Science Program’s Mission Tools Suite for Education
website allows K-12 classrooms from around the world to track the locations of
NASA aircraft in real-time and participate in live text-chats with mission
scientists, pilots, and others flying inside the airplanes and with mission
personnel on the ground. Website
features include:
•
Live flight following
–
Students and teachers can track the position of
ASP aircraft on a map in real-time
•
Live camera feeds from the aircraft (on select
missions)
•
Real-time satellite data products
–
Overlay current weather, hurricane tracks, etc
•
Environmental data from the aircraft
–
Ability to plot aircraft altitude, speed,
temperature, wind speed, etc. in real-time
•
Live text chats between classrooms and mission
scientists, pilots, and others onboard the aircraft or on the ground
The website has so far been used during five NASA Airborne Science
Program missions in 2012-2013
•
Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (Sept 2012)
•
IceBridge Antarctic (Oct-Nov 2012)
•
DISCOVER-AQ (Jan-Feb 2013)
•
ATTREX (Feb-Mar 2013)
•
IceBridge Arctic (Mar-May 2013)
From Kindergarteners asking if IceBridge personnel saw Santa when they
flew over the North Pole (they did not), to middle school students asking what it
feels like to fly a Global Hawk over a hurricane without actually being inside it during HS3, to high
school students asking specific questions
about atmospheric chemistry during DISCOVER-AQ and ATTREX, classroom chats are effective at all grade levels.

IceBridge Project Manager, Christy Hansen and Project Scientist, Michael Studinger onboard the DC-8 flying over Antarctica chatting with a middle school classroom in Maryland.
“Our 3rd graders were enthralled with following Operation IceBridge.
They loved learning about the science of the mission from those on the
airplane, and were fascinated with Antarctica, and learned a lot about ice
shelves, glaciers, and much more. Over the course of the year, they study all
the continents, so the area covered by the flights gave them an opportunity to
be introduced to Google Earth and use it to explore South America and
Antarctica. Kudos to Operation Icebridge
for including students in their mission. Thanks to all involved.”
–Cameron Cross, 3rd
Grade Teacher, New Hampshire
Watch our educational video about the HS3 mission to see
what MTSE looks like in action!
For more information and to connect your classroom with NASA
Airborne Science missions all over the world, email Dr. Emily Schaller (emily.schaller(at)nasa.gov)