Gaithersburg, MD - AWS, Inc.
Maryland students head for Kiluea Volcano Nat'l Park
Maryland AWS students head for Kiluea Volcano National Park
Kathy Bender’s Satellite Imagery class has been studying atmospheric conditions using a GOES lab (Geosynchronous Operational Environmental Satellites) located at Northwest High School in Germantown, MD. But having the satellite imagery without ground information would be only part of the picture. Using the AWS weather station on their own roof top and other stations throughout the U.S. and around the world, Ms. Bender’s class is able to look at the imagery and compare it to the electronic data from an AWS site in the observed area. This "ground truth" process completes the picture.
Ms. Bender and two of her students, Erin Mauer and Daniel Blake (pictured) will join a group of thirty scientists, teachers and students visiting Hilo, Hawaii, to conduct scientific experiments and broadcast them live (webcast) to viewers across the United States. This is part of NASA’s "You Be the Scientist" program, in particular, the EOSPM (Earth Observing System PM group). They will be analyzing ozone levels, sea surface temperatures, and other data collected live from ground-based observatories. The NASA program has been to the Black Sea for the solar eclipse, the Arctic to calibrate instrumentation, Aruba for the total eclipse in 1998 and a fall ’99 shuttle launch.
The primary purpose of the Hawaii project is to calibrate the instrumentation on a newly orbiting satellite using the LIDAR (green laser) located at the Kiluea Volcano National Park Observatory.
Adjunct to this, students will be completing the Rocks to Rainforest Project. Check it out at
