Science.Education. Wonder. Multiverse at Space Sciences Laboratory of UC Berkeley is uniquely positioned to connect with people’s sense of wonder. We facilitate making personal ties to science and the learning process to bring the richness of diversity to science and make science discovery accessible for all.

We are proud to be part of such a world-class institution, the home of great scientific discoveries, cultural diversity, and amazing education! Consider donating to Multiverse to build shared visions of science and increase diversity in Earth and Space science through multicultural education.

Twitter: @MultiverseUCB
Facebook: MultiverseUCB

[Today's Multiverse Guest Blogger is Emmanuel Masongsong, a passionate outreach educator with NASA's THEMIS/ARTEMIS mission team at UCLA. Today he talks about the Planeterrella, a miniature Earth model that can simulate the aurora (Northern Lights) and other plasma phenomena, the sight of which causes "children and adults to shriek with delight, 'ooh-ing' and 'aah-ing' at the eerie glow of plasma suspended in a ring before their very eyes."]

I had a pretty strong amateur astronomy background, but when I joined the team in early 2011, heliophysics, near-Earth electromagnetism, and space weather really forced me to expand my perception. Describing the immense electromagnetic phenomena in the solar wind and Earth's magnetic field requires specialized instruments and multiple spacecraft to observe what humans cannot actually see. One of the first things I realized about space weather is that the media and the public's attention are heavily weighted to the visible solar phenomena of flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs)-- thanks to gorgeous images from SDO, SOHO, and STEREO. The news headlines harp on X-flares and devastating clouds of solar material (plasma) hurtling towards Earth, offering overly ambitious predictions of spectacular aurora that are not based on real-time satellite observations (and are thus usually disappointing).

[Today's Multiverse Guest Blogger is Carmen Zheng, one of our former Surfin’ the Solar Wind high school interns, who grew up in Oakland and who is now—to our delight—an astronomy major at Cal. "On hot summer nights, we sat on the roof of my house, pretending we could see Pluto through our little telescope and pretending none of our problems existed."]

 On May 20, 2012, I was sitting in the back of a crowded minivan, basking in the cool breeze of the air conditioning and gazing out the window as the flashing city lights of Reno, Nevada whizzed by. Although glamorous hotels, slot machines, and neat souvenir shops basically surrounded our car, I was not looking at the streets – I was looking at the sky. May 20th was the date of an annular solar eclipse. We were headed to the small town of Nixon, Nevada, about an hour outside of Reno, where we would be directly underneath the passing of the moon between Earth and Sun. 

 

[Today's guest blogger is Meghan Campbell, a third-grade teacher who took our "Energy from the Sun" workshop -- with positive effects in her classroom!]
Meghan: After three days spent participating in the “Energy from the Sun” teacher workshop, I promised myself that I would work science, particularly solar science, into my classroom on a regular basis. I have seen firsthand how easy it is for things to fizzle out or be forgotten, but I did not want that to happen with all of my newly acquired activities that align perfectly with the third grade standards. From the start of the school year, I was sure to schedule science in at least once a week. 

We just wrapped up a great Teacher Workshop at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory—Energy from the Sun. The workshop focused on solar science and solar energy, and it coincided with one of the stormiest, wettest weekends in Los Angeles in a very long time. We are beginning to think that our solar workshops may actually have the power to bring rain!