[meteorite-list] URI Geoligist Tracking 'Cosmic Dust' With Help Of Local Teachers

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:07:04 2004
Message-ID: <200210281909.LAA00478_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.news.uri.edu/releases/html/02-1010.html

University of Rhode Island
Department of Communications/News Bureau
22 Davis Hall, 10 Lippitt Road, Kingston, RI 0288
Phone: 401-874-2116 Fax: 401-874-7872

URI geologist tracking "cosmic dust" with help of local teachers

KINGSTON, R.I. -- October 10, 2002 -- Every day tiny particles from
meteorites fall to Earth and come to rest in backyards, schoolyards, parking
lots and abandoned lots. In fact, according to Daniel Murray, a professor of
geosciences at the University of Rhode Island, "every night you're likely to
find one on the hood of your car and on every other surface the size of the
hood of your car. That's how the planet accumulates material."

With the help of local middle and high school teachers and a grant from NASA
and the Eisenhower Foundation, Murray and his colleague Jim Sammons are
tracking these cosmic dust particles and other materials that travel around
the globe on Earth's weather patterns.

For the last two summers, Murray and Sammons have offered workshops to teach
local science teachers how to collect, analyze and identify micrometeorites
and other cosmic dust. They hope to recruit hundreds of teachers around the
country to their effort, eventually posting their findings to a website and
comparing the patterns of what they find with global weather patterns.

"This activity will provide my students with the opportunity to conduct real
science in the classroom, not just canned, known-outcome book labs," said
South Kingstown High School science teacher Kristin Klenk. "Kids at this age
think that we -- teachers, scientists -- have all the answers. The idea that
no one has all the answers will be one of the biggest learning experiences
in this project. If we had all the answers why would anyone conduct
research? We don't know what we'll find."

Other teachers from South Kingstown, North Kingstown, Narragansett, Exeter,
Providence, Middletown, Portsmouth and West Warwick have also participated
in the workshops and learned how to incorporate the lesson into their
science curriculum.

The activity was the brainchild of Sammons, a retired Jamestown teacher who
now develops innovative science programs for educators. "I'm always looking
at science topics that get short shrift in middle and high school science
classes," he said. "Astronomy is one of those topics where, after learning
the names of the planets, most schools don't get into any of the more
detailed processes. Recently there has been tremendous improvement in the
understanding of micrometeorites, so I started wondering how easy it would
be to catch one of them. And it turned out to be very easy. The program grew
from there to an open-ended investigation."

Murray said that micrometeorites aren't the only dust that students are
likely to collect in their science lesson. Soot from power plants, pollen
from trees and plants, and bug parts are also commonly collected, among many
other things.

Last year Murray and Sammons traced a dust storm in the Gobi Desert in
Mongolia and found that dust particles found their way to the eastern United
States in just two weeks. Dust from the Sahara Desert in North Africa
commonly blows across the Atlantic Ocean and ends up on the eastern seaboard
as well.

Teachers interested in learning more about Murray's workshops and his cosmic
dust activities can contact him at 874-2197 or dpmurray_at_uri.edu.

Media Contact: Todd McLeish 874-7892
Received on Mon 28 Oct 2002 02:09:26 PM PST