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1000 SCHOOLS ENROLLED WORLDWIDE
NASA cloud study program marks millenary milestone
Cloudy days equal years of learning for students in a global
cloud-observation project.
Part of a long-term satellite experiment, the NASA Langley
Research Center Students' Cloud Observations On-Line (S'COOL)
activity recently registered Deer Creek Elementary School as its
1000th site. The Nevada City, Calif., school works with
NASA Langley's Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES)
to study how clouds affect the Earth's energy balance.
NASA Langley researchers in Hampton, Va., are training students
worldwide to observe clouds. There are currently 764 U.S. schools
involved in the project. S'COOL schools take measurements in all 50
states as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern
Mariana Islands, and in 57 other countries on all continents except
Antarctica.
In addition to being a research scientist at NASA Langley, Lin
Chambers is the director of the CERES S'COOL Project and a member
of the CERES Science Team. Chambers did a survey of S'COOL teachers
last fall. "Ninety-five percent of the respondents rated the
educational usefulness as great or good," she said. "And 73 percent
rated student interest and learning during S'COOL as very high or
high. Five hundred fifty-seven students were identified as having
an increased interest in science as a career as a result of their
participation."
Deer Creek and other S'COOL students send their data to a NASA
computer. The students' observations are then compared to those
from orbiting CERES instruments. CERES uses its vantage point from
space to provide global data on the Earth's energy balance and how
clouds affect it. CERES instruments are currently aboard the
Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and Terra
satellites.
"S'COOL has been a great experience not only for the students
and teachers but also for the scientists," said Dr. Bruce Wielicki,
co-principal investigator for CERES. "The S'COOL observations also
get us into remote places around the world without routine weather
stations. So the student data has been part of our plan to test and
verify the satellite cloud data.
"Here is an example of one of the ways we use the S'COOL data,"
added Wielicki. "One of the most important things CERES does is to
separate observations of totally clear-sky conditions from
conditions with some clouds in the sky. This allows us to isolate
the role of clouds in the radiation balance of the Earth. The
S'COOL observations do an excellent job of picking up small
scattered clouds, low level fog, or thin high clouds that we might
otherwise miss in the satellite data. Matching the S'COOL
observations to our satellite data then helps us quantify the
amount of cloud contamination we get in our clear-sky data."
More CERES instruments are expected to be launched on NASA's
Aqua satellite in March 2002. The Terra spacecraft is part of
NASA's Earth Science Enterprise, a long-term research effort being
conducted to determine how human-induced and natural changes affect
our global environment.
For more information on-line about S'COOL, CERES, TRMM or Terra
visit the following web sites:
http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/SCOOL
http://asd-www.larc.nasa.gov/ceres/ASDceres.html
http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/
http://terra.nasa.gov/
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