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Analysis of Data Collected During the 2017 Solar Eclipse at Eighty Percent Totality

Organization(s):Crestwood High School
Student(s):Maysam Aidibi, Leanne Alawieh, Ali Eter, Sara Komaiha, and Hana Salami.
Grade Level:Secondary School (grades 9-12, ages 14-18)
GLOBE Educator(s):Diana Rae Johns
Contributors:Dr. Kevin Czajkowski
Report Type(s):International Virtual Science Symposium Report
Protocols:Air Temperature, Clouds, Surface Temperature
Presentation Poster: View Document
Language(s):
Date Submitted:03/01/2018
A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes directly through the sun and earth. The most recent eclipse in North America took place on August 21st, 2017. On the 20th and 21st of August, a group took surface temperature, air temperature, light intensity, and cloud observation measurements on grass and asphalt sites, in addition to other weather parameters. This information was then inputted into the GLOBE website and a spreadsheet was created. After analyzing the data, several differences were found- not only when comparing the two days- but comparing the separate sites. Several unusual observations were made on the day of the eclipse. Not only did the bindweed, a local flower that grows on site, close during maximum coverage, but the students were able to hear crickets chirping. Finally, the student researchers found that data from their site was inversely correlated to Lake High School, a site near Toledo. From here, the researchers can evaluate the data to identify factors that may explain these results, such as cloud coverage. The importance of submitting this data is that these ground-level measurements can be utilized by NASA and GLOBE, two organizations who encourage the measuring of data during events like this.



Comments

Your project is awesome!!

I have two questions

1) Why do you need to compare the atmospheric data between grass and asphalt?

2) What do you think why the surface and air temp between two school is seem different? What parameters will be the influencing of the different?

Cheers,
Sirilak
Thank you, Ms. Chumkiew!
We decided to take measurements on both grass and asphalt to observe any microclimate differences in our data. We believe that the differences in surface/air temp between the two schools is due to differences in cloud coverage. We included a graph comparing cloud coverage for each site, and we believe this can be attributed to the differences in our observations.

We’re glad you enjoyed our project!

Crestwood High School