SUNY OSWEGO – Through the National Eclipse Ballooning Project, a SUNY Oswego faculty-student team is among the select institutions taking part in research related to this rare opportunity.
“The Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project is a NASA-funded field campaign that stems from 2017 when we had the last Great American total eclipse,” said Katelyn Barber, an assistant professor of atmospheric and geological sciences and one of the project’s faculty leads.
“During that time, a small select number of teams launched weather balloons at this hourly interval along the path of totality,” Barber explained. “You applied to become a team based on your resources and what you expect to do with the students, things like that. We were one of the selected teams. Very excited to represent SUNY Oswego.”
On April 8, students will launch their balloons to take readings hourly between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. from the field behind Swetman Hall. Members of the public are welcome to watch and participate in a number of family-friendly outreach activities between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Other faculty involved in the project, which also has National Science Foundation support, include Yonggang Wang of atmospheric and geological sciences and Natalia Lewandowska and Shashi Kanbur of physics. Some students and faculty traveled to New Mexico last fall to study an annular eclipse, but being in the path of totality on April 8 presents an incredible learning experience.
“We’re basically launching the weather balloons up into the atmosphere, collecting scientific data to really see how eclipses affect the atmosphere,” said Aurora Fitzgerald, a broadcasting and mass communications major. “We are particularly looking for gravity waves in the atmosphere, which is like a disturbance in the atmosphere.”
Fitzgerald’s participation mirrors the participation of majors beyond meteorology and physics, noting that the effort is very interdisciplinary, as the eclipse offers many learning opportunities for students as well as the public.
“It’s very unique in a sense that it promotes your experiential learning experience,” said physics major Shaheen Choudhury. “We got to do field work where we got to play with different instruments (and learn) how you measure the weather conditions.”
“Weather is not just the people that you see on TV showing you the weather,” said meteorology major Bradley Jacobs.
“It’s not just the weather on your phone,” Jacobs noted. “There’s so much to weather. I mean, with this project it opened my eyes more to the atmospheric dynamic side of the meteorology. More like the climatology, just a lot more in depth, as well as how astronomy and other physics affect our everyday weather.”
As the project’s outreach coordinator, meteorology major Kaitlin Farrell has been part of the effort to bring knowledge to school classrooms around the region. An average class is around 30 schoolchildren, although they have also presented to larger groups.
“I’ve been in touch with about 25 plus schools all across Central New York,” Farrell said. “Basically, we’ve been going to different schools across New York State. … We show them the equipment, talk about what we do, kind of go over how this works, talk about the eclipses. We also do a lot of safety to ensure that this is a very, it’s a cool activity, it’s a cool thing to happen, but it’s very dangerous if not handled properly.”
Those acquiring eclipse glasses should look for International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 12312-2 certification to ensure adequate eye protection. The American Astronomical Society website, eclipse.aas.org provides an approved list.
“And it’s just been a lot of fun and just getting the data, doing the work, making new connections, and just showing people that anyone’s able to do this,” Jacobs said.
“It’s been a real honor to be working with them and working with this amazing team,” Fitzgerald said.
“Being able to go out and express my passion for this to not only teachers and professors older than me, but also kids younger than me, to kind of get them interested and wounded up for this huge, exciting phenomenon,” Farrell said.
For more information on eclipse-related activities at SUNY Oswego, visit oswego.edu/eclipse.
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