Transcript The CISM Space Weather Summer School W. J. Hughes and the CISM Team Boston University Introduction The CISM Summer School is an intensive two-week.

The CISM Space Weather Summer School
W. J. Hughes and the CISM Team
Boston University
Introduction
The CISM Summer School is an intensive two-week program aimed primarily at students
entering graduate school or early in their graduate careers. Professionals in the space
weather field, particularly in industry, government or the military, have also benefited from
attending. The school provides an overview of the space environment (“Reality”), space
weather hazards (“Harsh Reality”), and models that are used to understand, specify, and
predict the space environment (“Virtual Reality”). Hands-on use of space weather models is a
core component of the school. The goal is to provide students with the Sun-Earth system
context for their subsequent more detailed and theoretical study in graduate school, and their
thesis research topic. The school is introducing innovative pedagogy at the graduate level and
it receives excellent reviews from participants.
The Curriculum
The summer school curriculum is divided into 4 “courses” that are taught in consecutive
segments each day. The morning sessions consist of three lectures focusing on different
aspects of the same topic. The afternoon session is devoted to computer lab exercises.
Through the two weeks the topics move from the Sun to the upper atmosphere. A Sample
two-week schedule of lectures, seminars, and labs is given below. The morning lectures are
broken up as follows.
SW 101: The Solar-Terrestrial Weather System (Reality)
An overview of the solar-terrestrial system that imparts an intuitive appreciation of its parts and their
interconnection. The emphasis is on phenomenology and the approach is largely visual with a heavy use of
images from spacecraft and computer graphics from numerical models.
SW 102: Space Weather Effects and Consequences (Harsh Reality)
An introduction to the many ways in which technological society is vulnerable to space weather effects and the
indices used to rank the severity of space weather conditions. The approach uses reviews of accounts of
historical events and the problems that they have caused.
SW 103: Space Weather Models (Virtual Reality)
Introduction to the models used to represent and predict conditions in space. The approach is concrete and
practical. Representative types of models will be described and students will use the model results in the labs.
Introduction
Monday
SW 101
Space
Environment
(Reality)
The Sun and Solar Wind
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Welcome and
Overview
The Sun
Solar Wind and
Interplanetary Magnetic
Field
Coronal Mass
Ejections (CME)
Hughes
Hughes
Hughes
Hughes
Effects &
Consequences
(Harsh Reality)
SW103
Modeling
(Virtual Reality)
SW 105
Modeling Labs
Introduction to
Space Weather
Effects
Solar Radiation
Effects I (Flares)
Spence
Spence
The Center for
Integrated Space
Weather Modeling
“Killer Electrons" Deep
Dielectric Discharges
The summer school faculty include leaders in the field of
space weather drawn from both inside and outside of
CISM. Below are listed those scientists/instructors who
participated in the Summer School.
CISM Team Members
Non-CISM
Nick Arge, AFRL
Robert Brunz, Florida Inst Tech
Alan Burns, NCAR
Jeffrey Hughes, Boston Univ.
Ramon Lopez, Florida Inst Tech
John Lyon, Dartmouth College
Stan Solomon, NCAR
Harlan Spence, Boston Univ.
Robert Spiro, Rice University
Robert Weigel, George Mason Univ.
Michael Wiltberger, NCAR
Patricia Doherty,
Boston College
Michael Golightly, BU
Micheal Hesse, NASA/CCMC
Keith Groves, AFRL
Robert Kerr, NSF
Dolores Knipp,
Air Force Academy
Terry Onsager, NOAA/SEC
Peggy Shea, AFRL (Retired)
Magnetosphere
Friday
Solar Energetic
Particles
(SEP’s)
Schwadron
SW 102
The Capstone Integrative Project
The Faculty
Galactic Cosmic
Rays
(GCR)
Space Weather
Operations
Spence
Spence
Illg
Magnetohydrodynamics and
MHD Models
The Wang-SheeleyArge Model of the IMF
and Solar Wind Flow
The Community
Coordinated
Modeling Center
Managing
Astronaut Radiation
Risk
Hughes
Hughes
Arge
Michael Hesse
Golightly
Introduction to Labs:
Visualizing Space
Weather Models
Exploring solar
magnetic structure
using MAS
Exploring Solar
Wind Structure:
Enlil model with DX
Predicing the
arrival of CMS’s at
Earth
Bruntz & Gross
Hughes & Arge
Predicting Solar Wind
and IMF
Conditions at Earth:
Wang Sheeley
Arge & Bruntz
Arge & Bruntz
Owens & Hughes
Monday
Tuesday
Ionosphere
Wednesday
Capstone
Thursday
Magnetosphere
Structure
Magnetospheric Storms
and Substorms
Ionospheric/
Thermosphere
Structure
Ionospheric Storms
Hughes
Hughes
Solomon
Burns
Predicting Space
Weather at the
NOAA/Space
Environment Center
Onsager
Ground Induced Currents
(GIC)
Modeling Equatorial
Ionospheric
Scintillations
Storm Effects on
WAAS navigation
system
The final day of the summer school is devoted to a capstone project designed to allow
the students to use the knowledge they have gained during the two weeks. Students
analyze real observational data from several days around a significant space weather
event using expert and jigsaw collaborative learning techniques.
Expert Groups: First the school is split into four equal-sized expert groups: solar,
heliosphere, magnetosphere, and ionosphere/ground-based. Each group is given the
data specific to their region and asked to identify important features, properties,
chronologies, etc, and to deduce as much as they can about this interval. Equally
important is to come up with a series of questions they want to ask of the data being
analyzed by the three other groups. Faculty are available to explain what the data
plots are, but not what they mean.
Jigsaw Groups: New 4-person groups are created, each containing one person from
each of the expert groups -- thus each jigsaw group contains a solar, a heliosphere, a
magnetosphere and an ionosphere/ground-based “expert.” These groups must then
piece together what happened in the Sun-Earth system during these period and
produce a wall-chart to illustrate their findings. They are asked to explain what
happened, identify concepts used, and suggest which models might have been helpful
in predicting the outcomes expected during the time period. The students are given the
remainder of the morning to complete this part of the project.
Wisdom Walk: The Jigsaw Groups’ wall charts are posted during the lunch break.
After lunch everyone walks around the posters comparing and learning from what the
different groups have determined from the same data sets.
Friday
Analysis of Real
Space Weather Event
Onsager
Doherty
Retterer
Magnetospheric
MHD Models
Radiation Belt Models
Magnetic Indices and
Empirical Models
Aurora
Wiltberger
Perry
Hughes
Solomon
Visualizing the
Magnetosphere
(LFM & DX)
Numerics and Particle
Drift Paths:
Programming in OpenDX
Satellite Drag
Visualizing the
Thermosphere &
Ionosphere
Analysis of Real
Space Weather Event
(continued)
Wrap up session and
student feedback
All
Lyon & Wiltberger
Lyon & Wiltberger
Knipp
Burns & Solomon
Evaluations
The response to the summer school has been overwhelmingly positive. On the
daily evaluations and the post summer school survey, average participant
ratings are all above “4” on a 5 point Likert Scale.
Participant Comments
Pedagogy
The Students
Various innovative pedagogies are used in the
summer school to improve the learning process.
The students who attend the summer school are diverse in
several respects, gender, employment/school, geographic
location, etc. Approximately 30% of those attending are
employed by government, industry or the military, and have a
job assignment that will benefit from a knowledge of space
weather. These, usually young professionals, add a different
perspective to the space weather curriculum.
Peer Instruction: Programmed into each lecture are “Time
out to Think” moments where participants are asked a
question that tests the understanding of a concept. Students
are asked to give their best answer. There is usually an array
of answers given and the instructor calls on a few students to
explain the reasoning behind their answer. Then students
discuss their ideas with neighbors before answering again.
Answers begin to converge on the correct one.
Question Cards: At the end of each morning students write a
question arising from the morning’s lectures on an index card.
These cards are sorted by the instructors during lunch, and
are answered at the start of the afternoon session.
Modeling Labs: The afternoon modeling labs allow students
hands-on use of the model simulations and visualization tools
to explore for themselves, for example, the 3-D configurations
of magnetic fields, currents, and plasma in the corona, solar
wind, and magnetosphere.
Benefits to young space weather professionals include:
•Networking with both research and operational
leaders in the field
•Networking with future researchers
•Exposure to the latest research results
•Exposure with research models some of which are in
transition to operations
•Networking with other space weather professionals
The following comments made as part of the post summer school survey.
•I liked the teachers most and how they presented the material at a good
pace. I also liked the data and the way questions were asked after a lecture
(pedagogical methods)
•SWSS gave me an overall picture of Sun-Earth Interaction. [I liked] the
diversity of the SWSS participants.
•Complete Sun-> mud overview in a (generally) clear and concise manner
without going into excessive detail on any one subject.
The CISM
Space Weather Summer School
for 2006 is listed as an IHY
Educational Program