EAST LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL HAZE PROJECT

The purpose of this project is to measure aerosols in the atmosphere. Aerosols are important because they can degrade the quality of the air we breathe and they play a role in climate change. Aerosols can come from many sources, including forest fires and other kinds of biomass burning, volcanic eruptions, air pollution, and even trees. Some satellites can detect haze and aerosols, but not close to the ground. The ground-based instruments used to do this work are called sun photometers.

Forrest M. Mims III, a GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment) scientist, invented a new kind of sun photometer. It uses photo diodes as sunlight detectors, instead of the optical filters used on more expensive photometers. These instruments are inexpensive and very rugged -- ideal characteristics for a GLOBE instrument. Mr. Mims and Dr. David Brooks are GLOBE scientists and asked East Lincoln High School to field-test their sun photometers. East Lincoln High School students began collecting aerosol data in May 1999 by field testing a one channel sun photometer.

Students collect the data from the instrument along with weather data that is then sent to Dr. David Brooks. Students email the data to Dr. Brooks at Drexel University. He responds by computing the aerosol optical thickness (AOT) for each reading from the sun photometer.

Students were sent a two-channel sun photometer and began taking data with it in the spring of 2000. ELHS students have taken more haze data than any other school in the world. ELHS will soon be a ground validation point for the EOS-Terra project. Student data will be displayed and the progress of the project reported. Students may be present to explain their project to interested persons.