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Sky-high

While the nanoManipulator allows students access to the tiniest scale, the SOLAR program (Students Online As Researchers) introduces students to an other-worldly level of observation, allowing them to take digital pictures of the sun some 93 million miles away. To do this, middle and high school students control the telescope at the Morehead Observatory using computers and the Internet, focusing it on certain locations of the solar landscape to capture images of sun spots and solar prominences (seen as bumps on the sun’s surface). By providing the excitement of controlling the telescope, Christiansen hopes to send the students’ interest in astronomy sky-high.

“I’m big on the idea that, especially in science, students should not attempt to learn science by listening to lectures, or even by looking at videos on computers,” says Christiansen, director of the observatory and professor of physics and astronomy. “I really do believe that all the talented scientists that I know are people who are basically tinkerers, hands-on people who mess around with stuff. So the whole conception of SOLAR was to be this hands-on idea. Yet it was to be done remotely.”

On a winter Saturday morning, teachers from around the state gathered at the Morehead Observatory to learn how to incorporate the SOLAR program into their curriculum. Teachers from Troutman, Swannanoa, Carrboro, Fayetteville, and Eden listened to Nancy West describe how to take measurements from the screen images captured by the telescope’s electronic camera. West, coprincipal investigator with Christiansen, traveled from the College of William and Mary in Virginia for the weekend seminar.

Through Internet communication, the teachers will be able to instruct students on guiding the telescope toward the sun and capturing their own images. Web cameras will show the students how the telescope moves in correspondence with their directives. Then the students will conduct one of a half-dozen experiments written by the SOLAR program leaders. By combining their own data with the data from students at other schools taken in past sessions, they’ll be able to track the movement of a particular sun spot and calculate the speed of the sun’s rotation.

“I think the important thing is that it’s not cookbook, it’s not all set up for them to get the right answer,” says Andy Dinardi, a Ph.D. student in astronomy who has been involved in the SOLAR program since the start. “It’s whatever they get. Science is all about doing experiments.”

These outreach programs rely on technology and advanced instruments to grab the attention of the intended audience, but it’s up to the professors and graduate students involved to engage the students.

“Can you believe they actually let us, high school students, use this expensive equipment?” Thomas Miller wrote. “To put it in plain words, it was the trippiest experience I have ever had.”

Coming soon…

…to a town near you, it’s Destiny—the science bus, or Traveling Science Laboratory. Biology Professor Skip Bollenbacher has outfitted a 40-foot bus with science labs and computer and satellite technology to bring hands-on experiments to classes that aren’t equipped for such excursions. In the next issue of Endeavors.

Article by Mark Briggs
© Copyright 2000 Endeavors magazine, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All rights reserved.

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