The Space Weather Underground: A Student-Built Array of Ground-Based Fluxgate Magnetometers in Northern New England
Abstract
We are constructing a regional ground-based fluxgate magnetometer array in northern New England that will facilitate the study of local ionospheric dynamics with data available to everyone in the scientific community. Each instrument is constructed from SAM-III fluxgate kits by high school students at schools distributed across New England. The magnetometers have a 1 nT sensitivity and 1 sec data cadence. A completed fluxgate with weatherproof housing, photovoltaics, radio data downlink, and GPS for accurate time tags costs $1100. Our goal is to have in excess of 15 sites distributed across Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and upstate New York. We currently have 5 sites already producing data, 2 of which are now feeding data into the SWUG Data Center that exists in a preliminary form. The technology is developed and proven to work. The array and data center are scalable. Our goal is to involve motivated high school students in the building of scientific instruments, the analysis of real scientific data, and to use that effort to provide motivation for learning core math, physics, engineering, and computer programming lessons as they explore possible career paths for the future. In the process, we will be generating useful scientific data that will be available to all.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019AGUFMED23A..04S
- Keywords:
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- 0850 Geoscience education research;
- EDUCATION;
- 0855 Diversity;
- EDUCATION;
- 6620 Science policy;
- POLICY SCIENCES & PUBLIC ISSUES