For Release: Feb. 5, 1998
Catherine Watson
(757) 864-6122
Release No. 98-007
St. Olav Videregående Skole Students Observe Clouds for
NASA
During the school day, most teachers prefer that students keep
their heads in the classroom. At St. Olav Videregående Skole
in Stavanger, however, teachers are encouraging their students to
keep their heads in the clouds.
Students at St. Olav are learning to observe clouds as part of a
NASA global cloud measuring project. The Students' Cloud
Observations On-Line
(S'COOL) project is part of a new satellite experiment
developed by researchers at NASA Langley Research Center in
Hampton, Va., USA.
The St. Olav students are learning how to observe the clouds
over their school and send their observations to a NASA computer in
the United States. The students' observations will initially be
compared to those from a weather satellite orbiting the Earth.
After the students have perfected their cloud observing techniques,
they will make cloud observations that NASA can compare to a new
satellite instrument. NASA Langley researchers hope to train
students worldwide to observe clouds for the project. There are 64
schools involved in the project, including schools in four European
countries.
The new NASA satellite instrument, the Clouds and the Earth's
Radiant Energy System
(CERES), will provide global data on the Earth's clouds
and energy budget to help determine what effect(s) clouds have on
possible global warming. CERES, which was launched into space Nov.
27, is part of NASA's Earth Science research program.
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