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OIA Research and Education Highlights
OIA Program News
OIA RESEARCH AND EDUCATION HIGHLIGHTS
Students engaged in Ice, Ice, Baby! activity in the classroom
Image credit: S. Prasad Gogineni
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Promoting Climate Science in the Classroom |
Middle-school students can experience the excitement of hands-on learning with “Ice, Ice, Baby!”—a series of inquiry-based activities and lessons related to ice and climate. Developed by the Center for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets (CReSIS), the lessons are available online and are also taught by CReSIS educators visiting classrooms. The lessons have been thoroughly tested and meet educational standards.
CReSIS, an NSF Science and Technology Center based at the University of Kansas, also sponsors an after-school program called Climate Pathfinders, which challenges students to explore how they can take action in their communities to combat climate change. CReSIS educates teachers about climate change and the cryosphere through annual workshops designed to share scientific content and strategies for transferring it to the classroom. A DVD for classroom use was developed by teachers who participated in the workshop. (2009 Highlight ID: 19145)
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These robots, part of the multi-robot testbed, include a custom suite of sensing, computing and communication equipment
Image credit: Ignacio Mas, Santa Clara University
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Multi-Robot Testbed Helps Improve Robotic Controls |
Christopher Kitts and his students at Santa Clara University are developing a multi-robot testbed that allows researchers to test and evaluate innovations such as robotic controls. A modular, Internet-based software architecture allows new control algorithms to be quickly plugged into the testbed, even from remote locations.
The testbed may be configured to produce scenarios of interest, with choices of several different mobile robots, position/object sensing (such as GPS or sonar), or communication links. Although development continues, the testbed is now operational for the research community. During the past year, student researchers used the testbed to demonstrate a variety of capabilities, ranging from novel control laws to a spoken dialogue operator interface.
Involvement with the testbed has generated student accomplishments that include two peer-reviewed conference publications, completion of master's theses, and undergraduate projects ranging from a year-long Capstone engineering project to class projects in computational linguistics. Furthermore, the testbed research has resulted in innovations that include a new control strategy, robotic field applications involving autonomous boats, and a multi-robot-based sparse array antenna. (2009 Highlight 18691)
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Thermal-Vacuum Chamber Allows Testing in Space-Like Conditions
Image credit: Perry Smith, UNH Photo Services
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Satellite Test Facility in New Hampshire |
A Space Science Small Satellite Test Laboratory, partially funded by EPSCoR, boosts the University of New Hampshire’s capabilities in space hardware technology and fabrication. The laboratory, which opened in October 2008, provides the university’s space scientists, students, and industrial partners with on-site thermal-vacuum testing and clean-room assembly of small satellite payloads. These capabilities allow satellite components to be tested in space-like conditions.
"Now, we are able to design our particular tests for our type of instruments, rather than adapt them to someone else's facility," said Roy Torbert, interim director of the Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space.
Industrial partner BAE Systems, one of New Hampshire's largest employers, uses the laboratory for testing instrumentation. The company also funds a Space Systems Fellowship program for university students, employing the lab as an educational tool. (2009 Highlight 19018)
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MORE HIGHLIGHTS
OIA PROGRAM NEWS
PSA: A Trekkie’s Stardate with Public Service
Understanding Government, December 17, 2009
Staff member Joan Frye describes her roots as a trekkie-turned-scientist and the aims of OIA's Science and Technology Centers Program. More...
Study: The Big Muddy can save coastal Louisiana
Houston Chronicle, October 20, 2009
A new study estimates that there is enough sediment in the Mississippi River to save large areas of coastal Louisiana from sinking into the Gulf of Mexico, if half of the river's muddy waters were diverted into the disappearing wetlands on either side of the river. "Building substantial amounts of new land in the Mississippi delta is indeed feasible," says the study, which involved researchers at the National Center for Near-Earth Dynamics. (STC) More...
Obama awards national science, technology medals
Associated Press, October 8, 2009
President Barack Obama linked scientific discovery to helping the struggling economy Wednesday as he honored those who invented batteries for implanted defibrillators, mapped the human genetic code and made global positioning systems possible. Awarding the National Medal of Science and the Medal of Technology and Innovation, Obama said the United States must continue to invest in "the next generation of discoveries and the next generation of discoverers." More...
State project to monitor butterfly's survival
The Herald, S. Carolina, August 23, 2009
The monarch butterfly, a graceful species with colorful wings and an itch to migrate, is on Susan Bonk's mind these days. She wants to know how many monarchs live in South Carolina and how global warming is affecting the majestic, orange-and-black insects. But to help answer these questions, she's counting on everyday residents. . . . Bonk's effort is part of a National Science Foundation project to educate people about climate change by involving them in research — with data as the fringe benefit. (EPSCoR state) More...
Station ALOHA Stands Sentinel
Environmental Science & Technology, Aug 7, 2009
"[David] Karl, who directs the Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education, participated in the first paper to scrutinize two decades of acidification data from top to bottom at Station ALOHA." (STC, MRI, and EPSCoR funding) More...
A Caveman's Guide to Maine
Down East, June 17, 2009
Maine’s evolutionary history, from wooly mammoths and pottery shards to mysterious mountains and hidden overlooks, is a tour in its own right. . . . The trail was sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the Maine Department of Transportation, the National Park Service, and a host of other federal and state agencies — even UHaul pitched in, painting an Ice Age Trail scene on 1,200 of its trucks. (EPSCoR state)
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Energy May Someday Come in Spray Cans
Lexington Herald-Leader, June 15, 2009
When John Anthony holds it up in the laboratory, it could look for all the world like an ordinary glass microscope slide with a thin strip of aluminum on it. It turns out to be a prototype for the solar energy panel of the future -- a panel so cheap that getting juice from the sun would make sense even in often-cloudy Kentucky. . . . For his university research, Anthony has received grants from the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and various industries. (EPSCoR state)
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Officials formally dedicate Sanford Lab in Lead
Rapid City Journal, (S. Dakota), June 23, 2009
Bill Heisinger and Alvin Burns will soon be mining again in the old Homestake Mine. This time, they will be mining for science. Heisinger, a 28-year employee at Homestake, and Burns, with 18 years at Homestake, drilled holes in a rock wall at the former mine's 4,850-foot level for a plaque dedicating the Sanford Underground Laboratory at Homestake during a ceremony Monday. . . . Those plans are key to getting about $550 million from the National Science Foundation to build the deep underground lab, said Kevin Lesko, a physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and principal investigator of the DUSEL Collaboration, a nationwide team of scientists. (EPSCoR state)
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Obama's 2010 budget provides crucial research funding
Chicago Tribune, June 18, 2009
President Barack Obama's proposed 2010 budget presents a concrete reason for optimism: the first increase in federal research funding -- in real dollars -- in more than eight years. Of particular note are increases in research and education initiatives for the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy. More...
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