Monday, May 14, 2012

Pictographs


 
What a beautiful day to be back at the Nakasuk School:  sunny and +2C!  All this week we will be working with four classes that participated in the Student-Researchers Atmospheric Collaboration: Keith’s grade 1, Nadine’s grade 3,  Ida’s grade 3 and Alison’s grade 3 students.  We were flattered that many students remembered Ashley and Camille – thanks!

At the beginning of each period, students reintroduced themselves and described their experiences with either a word or a short phrase.  We heard a lot of “awesome”, “fun” and even “I like CANDAC” statements.   After that, as scientists often do, we had a discussion about the data collection methods and the encountered difficulties.  Many classes began by taking measurements together as a class, and then recorded the data in groups of 3 or 4 as students gained confidence with their instruments.  In each case, however, there were challenges that young scientists had to face.  They had to battle cold weather and strong winds, properly make thermometer readings, determine the wind direction using a compass and a wind sock and even deal with a missing instrument. 

Everyone agreed that it would be great to share the acquired data.   One way they learned to do this was creating pictographs – graphs made out of pictures.  Students colored the pictures of thermometers and anemometers and then worked together to organize them chronologically.   

There are also other cool ways to share data and we’ll explore them in the days to come!  

- Your outreach team

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Excited to be at Iqaluit!



Hello everyone!

My name is Konstantin Baibakov, a CANDAC researcher at the University of Sherbrooke in the province of Québec.  I’m currently studying small particles suspended in the air (called aerosols) at the PEARL High Arctic station.  These particles play an important role in the climate of our planet.    We perform our measurements during the Polar Night by observing the stars.  I can tell you that  starry nights in the Arctic are truly special and beautiful!

I’m a new addition to the CANDAC outreach team and I’m really excited to be at the Nakasuk School together with Ashley and Camille this week.  I’m looking forward to hear all about the temperature and wind measurements the Nakasuk students have been carefully collecting over the past months!

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Clear and hazy sky conditions

Source: Ashley Kilgour
Date: May 10, 2012















Source: Ashley Kilgour
Date: May 3, 2012

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Fog in Toronto

At 7:00am this morning, the visibility in Toronto was only 0.2km! The fog was so thick that you could only see objects about 200m away clearly. By 10:00am the fog had cleared away and you could see objects about 19km away clearly.

This photo was taken at the corner of College St. and Spadina Ave. at 1:50pm today. Does it look foggy or hazy to you?

Source: Ashley Kilgour