Today's commentary

    *Submitted by Jeannie (USA) and Christine (Denmark)

    Today we had the morning to work on our projects. The task for the morning was to finish writing abstracts and input all our data. Groups spent most of the morning trying to finish everything up to get ready for our presentations tomorrow night.

    In the afternoon, we took a field trip to Kellyville, which is home to the Sondrestrom radar facility. They have lots of equipment that monitors activity in the upper atmosphere. The purpose of the facility is to do basic research and make the data available for others to use. Scientists can also submit proposals to earn time on the instruments. This facility is very special since it is one of the only facilities in the world that has all these types of instruments and it is also located on the auroral oval. The auroral oval is the oval around the northern part of the world where the aurora, or northern lights, can be seen when electromagnetic radiation comes through the atmosphere. It was really cool getting to see the big radar move around. It was also interesting getting to see another approach to research compared to the field research we had seen previously.

    This evening we were also treated to a group dinner made here at the school. We barbequed and everyone helped so we could enjoy a nice meal outside with a view of the river. It was a little cold and windy but everyone had a great time. Afterwards, everyone came inside to warm up and we enjoyed a showing of some of Hans Christian’s 10,000 photos he’s taken on the trip. It was great being able to look back at all we’ve done the past couple weeks.

    Agenda Highlights

    1) Writing up results in research teams

    The health research group
    The health research group analyzes their data. Photo by Laura Lukes, 2011.

    2) Fieldtrip: Sondrestrom Research Facility

    Sondrestrom Research Facility
    Sondrestrom Research Facility (Photo by Laura Lukes, 2011)

    3) Student-led grill event

    JSEP BBQ
    JSEP BBQ (Photo by Laura Lukes, 2011)

    4) Hans Christian's Photo Slideshow

    Today's Engineer

    Eggert Gudmundsson (Site supervisor and Senior Research Engineer, Sondrestrom Research Facility)

    Engineer Eggert
    Engineer Eggert at Sondrestrom Research Facility (Photo by Laura Lukes, 2011)

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