MIRROR EXPLORATION EXPERIMENTATION & REFLECTION IN CLIMATE ADAPTATION PLANNING (MEERCAP): A FIELD EXPERIMENT FOR SCIENCE EDUCATION, CLIMATE MITIGATION OUTREACH AND UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Communication about climate mitigation often focuses on hazard and risk reduction, with minimal attention played to public acceptance and “buy in” for the mitigation effort. Modern climate mitigation efforts generally take two tracks – carbon reduction or albedo enhancement. Carbon reduction, a necessary component of long-lasting change, is mired in the politicization of climate change and energy transformation. Albedo enhancement, a much less publicized approach, has encountered controversy mostly around the idea of injecting high-reflectivity aerosols into the upper atmosphere. We present a ground-based albedo enhancement experiment that tests the scaling feasibility of community-supported small arrays of mirrors built with sustainable and low-environmental-impact material.

The team, working on the research initiative: Mirror Exploration Experimentation & Reflection in Climate Adaptation Planning, is composed of faculty from two different higher education institutions and undergraduate students from three U.S. universities. The students are full partners, learning to calibrate and work with environmental sensors and program the dedicated sensor data collection programs, but also to use hand tools for cutting and drilling wood, hammering, screwing, fastening, and gluing the component parts, surveying field dimensions and sensor placement locations using a total station, and trouble-shooting scale, dimensionality and field plot elevational variations.

The project, initially supported through Open STEM grants by the University System of New Hampshire, and an NSF GeoPaths grant, is now being pilot tested for Grades 8-12 climate, physics, and energy curricula, and is incorporated into multiple Plymouth State University courses with modules dealing with Earth’s energy budget and climate mitigation, and student research projects on environmental impacts of climate mitigation. Team efforts to outreach and communicate MEERCAP themes to the public include kiosks at the two field experiment sites: on New Hampshire Institute of Technology campus, a community college in Concord, NH and near the Plymouth, NH airport, an easy commute for K-12 fieldtrips, plus a website with OPEN access to the field site datasets, dynamic data plotting, and OPEN education modules aimed at science proficiency goals.