Shortly after finding out she was one of thirty teachers selected to participate in a Zero-G flight as part of the Weightless Flights of Discovery Program, sponsored by Northrop Grumman, Erin Moore, an eighth grade teacher at Lincoln Avenue School in Illinois, gave Science Buddies an inside look at her sudden shift from "teacher" to "astronaut" - in her student's eyes. Her awareness that her students had already put her in orbit, left her faced with a philosophical decision: correct their assumptions or enjoy the sudden spark of enthusiasm she saw in their eyes about something related to science. Clearly Erin is a teacher who thinks a lot about her responsibility to her students, to their education, to their understanding, and to their dreams. We at Science Buddies have little doubt that Erin's students are lucky to be learning both science and life from a teacher like Erin.

She may not have gone to space, but as you'll see from Erin's recap of her flight, the experience was transformational, to say the least. Here's a look at the flight in her own words:

Recently, I had the opportunity to experience weightless flight though a program sponsored by the Northrop Grumman Foundation. Now my task is to find words to describe feelings that go beyond ordinary description. To put it simply. I felt like all the rules of the world had been broken, and I was a child in a playground finding out how it all worked again.

Here's how it went.

5:45: Day starts. Wake up and pack.


6:45: Go to the meeting area and have a nice breakfast. It was more food than I thought they would allow. There were sweet breads and many of my favorite fruits, but remembering that I could easily get sick, I tried to refrain from eating too much.

7:30: A pre-flight news and media event begins. Quickly we start to change into our flight suits and notice that our name tags are upside down. "That is on purpose, a tradition," I am informed when I point it out. The name tags should stay upside down until I have been upside down.

7:40: There are cameras flashing, breaking the darkness of the room. Our eyes struggle to adjust to the presence of the media.

8:00: Our pre-flight briefing is a movie. One of the first rules discussed is "no swimming." (We are told that the closest thing our body can relate to weightlessness is being underwater. So "no swimming.") Next, "no jumping" because we could easily hit our heads on the top of the plane. Lastly, "no kicking" because it could cause injury.

10:00: After a lengthy check and re-checks from TSA agents, we are finally aboard the plane.

The weightless portion of my flight begins, and I begin to break every rule they have carefully explained to me.

The first parabola was "martian gravity," about 1/3 my body weight. I would push off the floor and find it easy to push myself 2-3 feet in the air. I would then sink slowly back to the ground. The whole thing felt as I had dreamed for all these years that it might.

The next 2 parabolas were Lunar gravity. I experimented with 1/6th of my body weight by doing push-ups and bouncing jumps. By this point, none of the teachers on the plane tried to maintain any pretense of composure. We were laughing, screaming, and shouting for joy. Even as I was constantly bumping into people, I was filled with happiness.

The next 12 parabolas were zero g.

The first time I felt myself lift from the bottom of the plane, it was effortless. I was floating away. "I'm floating." Those were the only words I could say.

Just "being," surrounded perfectly by air, no struggle, no trying to keep that position... was magical. After 2 more parabolas, I laughed and played like a child who has just learned to balance a bike and takes off, soaring with freedom. I broke the rule of trying to swim through the air on a consistent basis. "Swimming" was the only way I could figure to try and affect my world, to move through it. Without gravity, I had no way of going from point A to B. I flared my arms like a bug turned upside down, but it was pointless.

As I grew accustomed to weightlessness, I started to pull my legs behind me. I started to think of myself only as my rib cage and arms. My legs were useless. In a zero-g environment, I existed only in my upper torso. That was the only way to affect my world.

The world had become a playground on that plane. We played with bubbling water and an air-zooka for propulsion. And, of course, there were floating M&M's, an astronaut favorite. I felt like a child with some idea of logic and no fear. I would try any experiment. Like a toddler first ready to walk, I was ready for the next step. Even in the noise of the airplane, there was a quiet stillness within me. I crossed my legs and felt... nothing, the nothing of being surrounded by air. The moment I was floating, tumbling upside, rolling over and over through air, I had achieved a dream set out by mother and myself 27 years ago.

The laws of Newton were evident during the flight. I could not move if I did not have something to push off of, pull myself towards, or collide with. The middle of the airplane was a no man's land. In the middle, I could struggle but get nowhere, until gravity returned to claim me and pull me to the floor of the plane again.

Every 20 seconds of zero-g, ended with me falling to the floor of the plane and laying on the floor. During the deep dives, gravity would take back its gift and exact a toll of 1.8gs. I felt the painful pull of Earth mostly in my ears and jaw, but I managed each time by focusing my eyes and concentrating on my breathing until I adjusted. I would spin, float, swim, and laugh for the next hour, hardly aware of the passing time.

11:15: The flight ended. Now I was back at a re-gravitation ceremony. I had snickered to myself when I first saw this part of the day on the schedule. A "re-gravitation ceremony"? But it was truly needed. When I was back on the ground, I felt the real pull of the Earth in a way I never appreciated before. I felt the Earth pulling me, and I felt my slight pull back. It was at that moment -- and every moment since -- that I marveled at Newton. Issac Newton figured out his laws of gravity and motion without any benefit of weightlessness. It wasn't until I was weightless that I could say, "I get it!"

So now the task is how to explain this experience - and the science behind it -- to my students. I will tell them that the world through the eyes of a scientist is a playground. A scientist is a person who appreciates every aspect of the world because she understands the incredible amount of magic involved. A scientist marvels at the millions of things that are going right to provide something as simple as a breath of air. To study and appreciate science means that you can dream of the incredible, fly through the air, sense the magic of life, and imagine what we can do. To look at the world in the way a scientist sees it is the happiest of ways. It reminds me of the joys of the greatest scientists, young children.

~ Erin

As Erin notes, it's hard to really "get" the concept of gravity until it's taken away. In talking with your students and classes about gravity, here are some Science Buddies Project Ideas that might be helpful and eye-opening:

• Centripetal Force Science Buddies' Difficulty Level: 2
• Parachutes: Does Size Matter? Science Buddies' Difficulty Level: 4
• Distance and Constant Acceleration Science Buddies' Difficulty Level: 6
• Balancing Act: Finding Your Center of Gravity Science Buddies' Difficulty Level: 6-8

A cooperative effort between Northrop Grumman, sponsor of Science Buddies' Aerodynamics Interest Area, and ZERO-G, the Weightless Flights of Discovery program began in 2006.

Many thanks to Erin for taking time from her busy school schedule to write this post-flight piece for us to use on the Science Buddies Blog!

Earlier this week, I talked about a paper chromatography project that offers a perfect opportunity for younger students to observe the pigmentation of Autumn leaves and then a make-your-own-markers project that can turn a pile of leaves into a set of homemade art supplies.

For a different spin on fall foliage, the "Leaves and Light" project explores the two kinds of chlorophyll present in plants and the degree to which the color and wavelength of light affects the chlorophyll content of a leaf. With a Science Buddies' Difficulty Level rating of 2 and a time frame of approximately a week, this project is one that can be done at home or in a classroom over a span of days.

For more independent work with fall leaves, the "Chlorophyll Extraction" API offers an abbreviated project idea with a Science Buddies' Difficulty Level rating of 3.

Mashing a pile of fall leaves offers a colorful demonstration of "extraction" and sets the stage for paper-towel-based chromatography.

One of the things that I often miss living in the Bay Area is the definitive visual change of seasons. Having spent many years in Appalachia, I grew up with the splendor of Autumn unfolding around me each September, the array of intense reds and golds giving way to barren branches poised to hold ice and snow through the winter months. It's very different when you live where there is never a hard freeze.

Given that things seem to bloom almost year-round here, I often forget about Autumn foliage, about what it looks like to drive a mountain road and see trees dipped in color, about what it means to have to rake a yard and bag up leaves, about the crisp crunch of them underfoot. Drive an hour south, however, and you run right into changing trees, even ornamental trees in parking lots and around industrial buildings are saturated with color. As I pulled into a parking spot last week for a Science Buddies' meeting, I saw the colors of "fall" in trees all around me and got to thinking about the opportunity these leaves present for studying pigmentation and even chromatography with my kids.

A quick search on the Science Buddies' site turned up a great project with which to dig beneath the surface of things and get a better understanding of what's going on within the leaves at this time of year. With a Science Buddies' Difficulty Level rating of 1 and a timeframe of less than a day, the "What Color Are the Leaves Really Turning?" project idea is perfect for even the youngest of classrooms or for a home-based after-school project. The project involves gathering leaves (a nature walk), sorting them by color (math), and then extracting the pigment by mashing (fun) the leaves in alcohol (a solvent). Once the color has been extracted, ordinary heavyweight paper towels cut into strips allow simple chromatographic analysis of the colors in each extract letting you see the range of colors at play.

There's a lot going on in this simple-to-perform experiment!

Expanding these fundamental concepts and procedures a bit, the Make Your Own Markers project uses color extracted from plants and paper chromatography to make homemade markers. This project can also be done with spices, richly colored vegetables, and other plants, but if an abundance of Autumn leaves are nearby, you've got the makings of a nice set of red and orange markers!

Does it take you a bit of time to settle in once the time changes? Did you or members of your family wake up earlier the day after the time changed? Do you notice already the changes in available light during the day? Do you know "why" the time changes? Did we gain an hour or lose an hour? Aren't there just 24 hours... regardless?

It's interesting to note that while observing Daylight Savings Time is not mandatory in the United States (and not even all states participate), Daylight Savings Time is regulated by the Department of Transportation. For a look at the history of Daylight Savings Time and its connection to "travel," see National Geographic's "Daylight Savings Time 2009: When and Why We Fall Back."

The end of Daylight Savings Time last weekend and the changing of clocks "back" an hour may have generated some buzz in the teacher's lounge and in the hallways. But, whether the clocks move forwards or backwards, there are still 24 hours in the day.

Right?

The "A Matter of Time" Science Buddies Project Idea calls into question the assumption that "a day is a day is a day." The project introduces students to several systems of timekeeping used around the world: Standard Time, Sidereal Time, and Solar Time. Are all of them equally accurate? The project uses an online tool to help track and assess the accuracy of time depending on which system of measurement is used. Variations of the project can be used to consider issues related to Daylight Savings Time and Lunar Time.

After drawing conclusions about how many hours there really are in a day, the change in time and the ways in which we react to the change leads nicely to introductory discussions of Circadian Cycles, in humans and in other life forms. The following long-term Science Buddies' project ideas explore patterns of response to the time of day (or to light and dark):

• Can Your Body Temperature Tell the Time of Day? Find Out with Human Circadian Cycles. (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 6)


• Tick Tock, Tick Tock, Does Your Mouse Know the Time on the Clock? (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 7)


• Bioluminescence: Investigating Glow-in-the-Dark Dinoflagellates (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 7)

Photo: Kenneth Hess, 2009. Specs: Stack of 17 images, 85 minutes total exposure time on a Nikon D3. The telescope was an Astro-Physics 155mm f7 StarFire EDF Triplet Apochromatic Refractor. [View full-size image.]

I wrote earlier about my trek to the northeastern corner of California to attend the Golden State Star Party. My objective was to photograph a galaxy, and after checking out the pristine skies during my first night of observing, I selected my targets: M81 and M82, a close-by pair of galaxies in Ursa Major (the Big Dipper).

Some nearby galaxies appear fairly large in the sky, surprisingly, almost the size of a crescent moon in the case of M81. But the surface brightness is extremely low, so such galaxies are not visible to the naked eye. Even through my telescope eyepiece, M81 is little more than a smudge of light. To see interesting detail takes a very large telescope, a long photographic exposure, or both. Since I had never taken photographs of this type, preparation took months.

There were three areas where I needed to do research, purchase equipment, and practice:

1. Even though my telescope has a mount that compensates for the earth's rotation, I knew that small errors could creep in and smear my pictures unless I made corrections. I've done this by hand for relatively short exposures, but I knew that my photos of M81 and M82 would take hours of exposure, so I purchased and learned to use an autoguider, which is an auxiliary camera on a small telescope piggy-backed to the main one. If the target moves even a fraction of a pixel off center, the autoguider sends a correction to the telescope mount to compensate.
2. When doing long exposures with a digital camera, one typically breaks the total exposure into pieces (5 minutes each in my case), and then stacks the resulting exposures in a program like Photoshop. This stacking reduces the noise in the resulting photograph. You can press the shutter by hand, but I chose to obtain special software and cables to remotely control the Nikon DSLR that I planned to use for the photographs. From my laptop computer, its screen covered with red Plexiglas® so as not to disrupt my night vision, I could view through and control both my autoguider and my Nikon.
3. Finally, it is very difficult to focus a telescope with a camera attached because the image is so dim. I chose to purchase and use a Bahtinov mask, which is a strangely shaped mask that I put over the lens of my telescope only while I am focusing it. The mask produces a diffraction pattern around any star. This pattern indicates whether the image is in focus and, if not, in which direction to turn the focus knob - it's pretty slick!

Having worked most of the kinks out in advance, I was very happy with my results; however, there was a surprise. I found that earth-orbiting satellites were streaking across five of my exposures. Fortunately, when stacking the images, it is possible to make these streaks disappear. In my next entry I'll discuss the nature and size of M81 and M82.

Curious About Astrophotography?

Whether you come at it from an interest in astronomy or an interest in photography, astrophotography is an eye-opening field that combines art, science, and technology. If you are interested in learning more about astrophotography with digital cameras, these resources will help get you started:

• The Digital Photos and Dynamic Range Science Buddies Project Idea discusses important information that any astrophotographer needs to understand.


• Catching the Light is a good general source of information about digital astrophotography.
  

A Jack o' Lantern made for the Holywell Manor Halloween celebrations in 2003. Photograph by Toby Ord on 31 Oct 2003. Source: Wikmedia Commons

Giant four-foot spiders climbing the sides of houses, carved pumpkins perched along stairwells of houses, ghosts dangling from eaves, and R.I.P. stakes in lawns here and there bring tidings of all things Halloween. And though Trick or Treat for Unicef boxes did make their way home, there is little doubt that after trick-or-treating there will be candy, candy, and more candy to sort and count and trade and barter... and eat.

The same will be true in many houses, and stories of Halloween bounty will filter through the halls and into classrooms on Monday morning. Understandably, candy is contraband at most schools - for eating. But I've got a list of short-term Science Buddies' project ideas that can parlay the contents of a trick or treat bag into concrete science that's fun to watch, fun to contemplate, and fun to test.

With candy as a starting point, there's something sweet about these short-term projects, for sure. Covering a range of principles and concepts from math and statistics to adaptation and habitats, nucleation, perspiration, humidity, chromatography, and more, there's surely something here with which to treat your students. Dip in and have fun. No costumes required!

• M&M Survival Challenge (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 1-3)
• Keep Your Candy Cool With the Power of Evaporation! (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 2-3)
• Coke® & Mentos® - Nucleation Goes Nuclear! (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 2-3)
• M&M Math(Science Buddies' difficulty level: 3)
• Candy Chromatography: What Makes Those Colors? (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 5-6)

Looking for something a bit more involved and longer in duration that can carry you into the next round of sweet treats? Check out Fast Food: Can Peppermint Improve Reaction Times? (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 8).

If you try one of these with your students or family, please let us know how it goes!

Note: A core team of scientists at Science Buddies work on an ongoing basis on the development of science fair project ideas that are grounded in real-world science and current events and are engaging. Working to excite a wide range of students, our scientists often work on projects that uncover and highlight the science that underwrites even everyday activities. Each month, we'll be asking one of our scientists "What's your favorite project idea from the ones you've recently authored and why?" With each monthly Scientist's Pick, we'll give you a behind-the-scenes look at what our scientists are thinking when they come up with the ideas they turn into project ideas for Science Buddies. We'll find out why they picked a certain project or problem to explore and why they enjoyed a certain project. We're kicking off this new blog feature with a pick from staff scientist, Michelle Maranowski. ~ Science Buddies' Editorial Staff

Project: Popping an Ollie: How Skateboarders + Physics = A Really Cool Trick
Scientist: Michelle Maranowski
Science Buddies' Difficulty Level: 4

Have you ever seen skateboarders in your city? The way they balance on a small plank of wood, dodging and weaving around obstacles, is amazing. I have always been fascinated by the skill, stamina, and strength that skateboarders exhibit. Most adults that I know find skateboarders kind of annoying and think of skateboarding as a silly hobby.

I spent some time with a typical skateboarder, Jonathan Perez, and I realized that for skateboarders like Jonathan, skateboarding is more than a hobby. Jonathan is passionate about skateboarding because he believes it is an art form. He also believes that his hobby has improved his balance and focus.

After watching Jonathan jump and spin, I realized that while there is art to skateboarding, the sport also demonstrates physics at work. I thought that writing a project on the physics of skateboarding might interest a lot of students who think that science has no application in real life and just belongs in the laboratory.

In the project "Popping an Ollie" we look at the how to do the most basic trick, the Ollie, and the physics behind it. The Ollie is the first step in more complicated tricks like the 360 kick flip. Some of the forces that act on a skateboarder are gravity, the weight of the skateboarder, and the force of the ground pushing back up on the skateboarder. In "Popping an Ollie," the skateboarder experiments with how his or her speed affects the height and the distance of the Ollie.

~ Michelle

If you enjoy skateboarding, try this Science Buddies project along with the other skateboarding project in the Sports Science section of Science Buddies.

In his second "Road to the Science Fair" blog entry, Chicago-based guest teacher-blogger Brian shared questions raised as he met with staff and colleagues to talk about their upcoming science fair. Brian was prepared with an impressive set of well-considered and solid answers. He and his school are well on their way to organizing their first fair!

One of the things Brian mentioned is that he and his colleagues have decided to allow students to enter Rube Goldberg Machines in the school science fair. Named after a famous cartoonist whose work often depicted detailed and convoluted machines designed to perform simple, ordinary tasks, Rube Goldberg Machines are fun to watch and demonstrate the principles of simple machines and chain reactions. These often complicated contraptions are laden with a certain amount of "wow" factor and an equal proportion of suspense... will that component strike at the right speed and right angle and right moment to trigger the next event in the sequence?.

Movie buffs likely remember Rube Goldberg-like machines from films like Robots, Edward Scissorhands, and even, going way back, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Several years ago, a Honda car commercial called "The Cog" amazed viewers with two minutes of meticulous and very-well filmed domino-like effects that resulted in the car being started and rolled off a platform. The tagline: "Isn't it nice when things work?"

Not all science fairs allow Rube Goldberg inventions. If you have students interested in Rube Goldberg Machines, we at Science Buddies encourage you to explore science fair projects that appear in our Mechanical Engineering areas of science. We have a number of project ideas that introduce relevant concepts and yet encourage the development of a working hypothesis and completion of the steps of the Scientific Method.

Here are just a few to get you and your students started thinking about the mechanics involved in solving ordinary tasks:

• Gears-Go-Round! (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 4)
• Rubber Bands for Energy (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 3-6)
• Bomb's Away! A Ping Pong Catapult (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 4-5)
• Soda Straw Robot Simulator (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 4-8)
• Give Yourself a Lift: Lightening the Load with Pulleys (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 6)
• Roller Coaster Marbles: How Much Height to Loop the Loop? (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 6)

Science fair projects in the area of Civil Engineering area are also excellent for students who love to "build" things.

This week, we'll be looking skyward as we await the impact of the LCROSS satellite and hope for sight of the plume on the morning of October 9. But next week, our attentions will spiral back to Earth for "Earth Science Week 2009," October 11-17. Organized by the American Geological Institute and sponsored by a range of geoscience organizations, including the U.S. Geological Survey, NASA, the National Park Service, and the AAPG Foundation, the annual "Earth Science Week" aims to promote geosciences and to educate students, teachers, and families about the importance of being stewards of the Earth.

The theme for "Earth Science Week 2009" is "Understanding Climate." From daily NASA videos to a webcast in which oceanographers talk about their careers, "Earth Science Week 2009" promises a diverse array of Earth-centered activities and information.

The following Science Buddies' short-term science fair project ideas may prove useful as cornerstones for climate-related discussions and in-class projects with your students that tie in with Earth Science Week:

• How Does a Wind Meter Work? (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 2)
• Home Sweet Biome: How Do Plants Grow in Different Environments? (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 3)
• The Reasons for Seasons (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 4-5)
• Do Warmer Seas Make Stronger Hurricanes? (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 7-9)

There are three contests students can enter as part of Earth Science Week 2009: a photography contest, a visual arts contest for K-5, and an essay contest for grades 6-9. For more information and specific contest rules and deadlines, please visit the Earth Science Week website.

"Earth" as photographed by Project Icarus' weather-balloon-toted camera at 93000 feet. (Photo used with permission. http://space.1337arts.com/)

A recent CNN story highlights the spirit of ingenuity and determination that pushes the envelope of science and, in this case, the financial realities of space photography. Oliver Yeh, an MIT student, has a reputation among friends for being a "free thinker," but as Project Icarus proved, he's also got the science to put behind his big concept (and low budget) ideas.

With past scientific escapades like floating down-river on a raft of plastic bottles to his credit, Yeh reportedly didn't get a lot of support when he first sought out a partner to help with his newest project. But he didn't turn back. His idea was to launch a low-cost camera into near-space using bare-bones equipment: a weather balloon, a digital camera, a cell phone (for GPS tracking), hand warmers (to keep the phone battery from freezing), and a Styrofoam cooler (to protect the camera). Add in a small parachute for the drift back to Earth and a note taped to the outside of the cooler offering a reward for return of the assemblage if found, and Project Icarus was ready for near-space. After much planning, much calculating, and many "what if's," the team launched their balloon-toting camera on September 2, on a barebones budget that rang in at $148.

The story of the project reads like a good episode of a storm-chasers' program as the duo camped out the night before the launch and then waited... and waited... hoping for a signal that would let them know the camera had landed in one piece and not in a body of water. It's good reading. It's good science. And, as Project Icarus makes clear - space photography isn't solely in the purview of NASA.

The summary of the project in CNN's report makes the team's objectives and methods sound fairly straightforward. They planned to float a helium-filled weather balloon into the atmosphere. They predicted air pressure would cause the balloon to pop at approximately 17 miles up, and then the apparatus would parachute back to the ground. Throughout the flight, the cooler-encased and open-source programmed camera would snap photos every five seconds, recording the journey into "near-space." And, of course, the phone's GPS would let them track the launch and then find the gear once it touched down again.

Though it sounds like there were moments of doubt as the hours after the launch passed, things worked out as planned. The equipment was successfully located via GPS and retrieved, and the camera was full of striking photos. (The beauty of the near-space photos led them to set up the 1337arts website, which focuses on the intersection between art and science.)

In their own documentation of the project, the successful flight, and the surprisingly high-quality photographs from near-space, Yeh talks about the importance of a project like this as a touchstone for revitalizing interest in science among high school students. By demonstrating that it's possible to turn ordinary equipment into something out of this world, Yeh hopes to inspire a younger audience and their teachers.

Not surprisingly, reports of their successful flight spread quickly through Internet streams, and the team has been quick to warn that launching things into the atmosphere requires FAA approval.

While your students may not be launching to near-space anytime soon, Science Buddies has several relevant science fair project ideas which can let students begin to explore the kinds of concepts and parameters Yeh and his teammate thought through, strategized, and hypothesized in the months before the launch.

• Rocket Aerodynamics
(Science Buddies' difficulty level: 5-9 )
• Using Weather Balloon Data to Map Atmospheric Temperature
(Science Buddies' difficulty level: 6)
• Altitude and Elevation
(Science Buddies' difficulty level: 4-5)