Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

My son is working on "measuring sky glow with a digital camera". After trying to "calibrate w/white paper" we find the math concepts are above his skill level. We are both having trouble understanding the graphs in the calibration process and the related terminology. The paper work for this project has already been submitted to the state science fair org and it is too late to change projects. Is there someway to "simplify" the explanation of this project for a student that has no experience with algebra/logarithms. Or to make a similar project that is on an easier level.

Hello. We apologize no one has responded sooner. I am not an expert in photography, but I did some digging and found posts from previous students working on the same project. Perhaps these discussions can help:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... =26&t=8326
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... =29&t=4346
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... =26&t=4533

Also, they post this as a suggestion for an easier topic.
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... p012.shtml

Good luck!

In addition to the information Deana gave you regarding past posts on this project, can you let us know if you and your son have downloaded the ImageJ program referenced in the project and are using that to gather the calibration information from the histogram screens? The information to put in the chart is shown in the histogram image and corresponds to the chart headings:

Mean Std. Dev. Min Max Mode

Does the software (or ImageJ) you are using match up to this photo in terms of information provided?



Knowing this will help our Experts better assist.

Amy
Science Buddies

The alternative idea provided above for a project is probably more age appropriate for your son. The level of math is more straightforward. I would recommend doing this project instead of the one you proposed as he would learn the physics concepts without getting confused about middle school level math concepts.

Nevertheless, if you and your son are ambitious and want to continue with your project, I would recommend getting a primer on basic statistics. I will research and get back to you once you provide the clarification requested by Amy.

I Googled for a primer for a simple statistics primer and found this very good explanation:

http://anothermathgeek.hubpages.com/hub ... statistics[/u]

Some more advanced primers that you can reference if you need the additional information:

http://people.stern.nyu.edu/adamodar/pd ... primer.pdf

http://stattrek.com/descriptive-statist ... utorial=ap

Please let me know if you need any further information.