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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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NASA NTRS2005

Introduction and Mission Response Team (MRT)

On February 1, 2003 the Space Shuttle Columbia, returning to Earth with a crew of seven astronauts, disintegrated along a track extending from California to Louisiana. Observers on the ground filmed breakup of the spacecraft. Debris fell along a 567 statute mile track from Littlefield, Texas to Fort Polk, Louisiana; the largest ever recorded debris field. At the time of the accident the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) flight surgeon on-duty at the Mission Control Center (MCC) in Houston, Texas initiated the medical contingency response. The DOD surgeon at Patrick Air Force Base was notified, NASA medical personnel were recalled and the services of Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) were requested. Subsequent to the accident the NASA flight surgeons that had supported the crew on orbit now provided medical support to the crewmember s families. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and numerous other federal, state and local agencies along with the citizens of Texas and Louisiana responded to the disaster. Search and recovery was managed from a Disaster Field Office (DFO) established in Lufkin, Texas. Mishap Investigation Team (MIT) medical operations were managed from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. Accident investigation teams (Columbia Accident Investigation Task Force (CAITF) and Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB)) appointed immediately after the disaster included current and former authorities in space medicine. In August 2003, the CAIB concluded its investigation and released its findings in a report published in February 2004.

Pool, Sam↗
NASA NTRS2005

Primary Disaster Field Office (DFO), Lufkin, Texas

On February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart during atmospheric re-entry on mission STS-107; the complexity of such an event cannot be underestimated. The Lufkin Disaster Field Office (DFO) served as the primary DFO for all operations, including staging assets and deploying field teams for search, recovery and security. There were many organizations that had operational experience with disaster recovery. Offers to help came from many groups including the White House Liaison Office, the Department of Defense (DOD), branches of local, state and federal government, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), state police, fire departments, the Texas Forestry Service, the Texas Army National Guard, medical groups, various rescue forces, contractor companies, the Salvation Army, local businesses, and citizens of our country and especially East Texas. The challenge was to know how much help to accept and how to efficiently incorporate their valuable assistance into a comprehensive and cohesive operational plan. There were more than 2,000 people involved with search and recovery.

Wetherbee, James D.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Earth Science Education Plan: Inspire the Next Generation of Earth Explorers

The Education Enterprise Strategy, the expanding knowledge of how people learn, and the community-wide interest in revolutionizing Earth and space science education have guided us in developing this plan for Earth science education. This document builds on the success of the first plan for Earth science education published in 1996; it aligns with the new framework set forth in the NASA Education Enterprise Strategy; it recognizes the new educational opportunities resulting from research programs and flight missions; and it builds on the accomplishments th'at the Earth Science Enterprise has made over the last decade in studying Earth as a system. This document embodies comprehensive, practicable plans for inspiring our children; providing educators with the tools they need to teach science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); and improving our citizens' scientific literacy. This plan describes an approach to systematically sharing knowledge; developing the most effective mechanisms to achieve tangible, lasting results; and working collaboratively to catalyze action at a scale great enough to ensure impact nationally and internationally. This document will evolve and be periodically reviewed in partnership with the Earth science education community.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2010

Improving Customer Waiting Time at a DMV Center Using Discrete-Event Simulation

Virginia's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) serves a customer base of approximately 5.6 million licensed drivers and ID card holders and 7 million registered vehicle owners. DMV has more daily face-to-face contact with Virginia's citizens than any other state agency [1]. The DMV faces a major difficulty in keeping up with the excessively large customers' arrival rate. The consequences are queues building up, stretching out to the entrance doors (and sometimes even outside) and customers complaining. While the DMV state employees are trying to serve at their fastest pace, the remarkably large queues indicate that there is a serious problem that the DMV faces in its services, which must be dealt with rapidly. Simulation is considered as one of the best tools for evaluating and improving complex systems. In this paper, we use it to model one of the DMV centers located in Norfolk, VA. The simulation model is modeled in Arena 10.0 from Rockwell systems. The data used is collected from experts of the DMV Virginia headquarter located in Richmond. The model created was verified and validated. The intent of this study is to identify key problems causing the delays at the DMV centers and suggest possible solutions to minimize the customers' waiting time. In addition, two tentative hypotheses aiming to improve the model's design are tested and validated.

Arnaout, Georges M.↗
NASA NTRS2011

NASA/JSC ISSLive!

Just 150 miles above us, the International Space Station (ISS) is orbiting. Each day, the astronauts on board perform a variety of activities from exercise, science experiments, and maintenance. Yet, many on the ground do not know about these daily activities. National Aeronautics Space Agency/ Johnson Space Center (NASA/JSC) innovation creation ISSLive! - an education project - is working to bridge this knowledge gap with traditional education channels such as schools, but also non-traditional channels with the non-technical everyday public. ISSLive! provides a website that seamlessly integrates planning and telemetry data, video feeds, 3D models, and iOS and android applications. Through the site, users are able to view astronauts daily schedules, in plain English alongside the original data. As an example, when an astronaut is working with a science experiment, a user will be able to read about the activity and for more detailed activities follow provided links to view more information all integrated into the same site. Live telemetry data from a predefined set can also be provided alongside the activities. For users to learn more, 3D models of the external and internal parts of the ISS are available, allowing users to explore the station and even select sensors, such as temperature, and view a real-time chart of the data. Even ground operations are modeled with a 3D mission control center, providing users information on the various flight control disciplines and showing live data that they would be monitoring. Some unique activities are also highlighted and have dedicated spaces to explore in more detail. Education is the focus of ISSLive!, even from the beginning when university students participated in the development process as part of their master s projects. Focus groups at a Houston school showed interest in the project and excitement towards including ISSLive! in their classroom. Through this inclusion, students' knowledge can be assessed with projects, oral presentations, and other assignments. For the public citizens outside of the traditional education system, ISSLive! provides a single, interactive, and engaging experience to learn about the ISS and its role in space exploration, international collaboration, and science. While traditional students are using ISSLive! in the classroom, their parents, grandparents, and friends are using it at home. ISSLive! truly brings the daily operations of the ISS into the daily lives of the public from every generation.

Harris, Philip D.↗
NASA NTRS2011

ISSLIVE! Bringing the Space Station to Every Generation

Just 200 miles above us, the International Space Station (ISS) is orbiting. Each day, the astronauts on board perform a variety of activities from exercise, science experiments, and maintenance. Yet, many on the ground don?t know about these daily activities. ISSLive! - an education project - is working to bridge this knowledge gap with traditional education channels such as schools, but also non-traditional channels with the non-technical everyday public. ISSLive! provides a website that seamlessly integrates planning and telemetry data, video feeds, 3D models, and iOS and android applications. Through the site, users are able to view astronauts? daily schedules, in plain English alongside the original data. As an example, when an astronaut is working with a science experiment, a user will be able to read about the activity and for more detailed activities follow provided links to view more information -- all integrated into the same site. Live telemetry data from a predefined set can also be provided alongside the activities. For users to learn more, 3D models of the external and internal parts of the ISS are available, allowing users to explore the station and even select sensors, such as temperature, and view a real-time chart of the data. Even ground operations are modelled with a 3D mission control center, providing users information on the various flight control disciplines and showing live data that they would be monitoring. Some unique activities are also highlighted, and have dedicated spaces to explore in more detail. Education is the focus of ISSLive!, even from the beginning when university students participated in the development process as part of their master?s projects. Focus groups at a Houston school showed interest in the project, and excitement towards including ISSLive! in their classroom. Through this inclusion, student?s knowledge can be assessed with projects, oral presentations, and other assignments. For the public citizens outside of the traditional education system, ISSLive! provides a single, interactive, and engaging experience to learn about the ISS and its role in space exploration, international collaboration, and science. While traditional students are using ISSLive! in the classroom, their parents, grandparents, and friends are using it at home. ISSLive! truly brings the daily operations of the ISS into the daily lives of the public from every generation.

Harris, Philip D.↗
NASA NTRS2011

ISSLive!

The ISSLive! project is a JSC innovation award- winning, combined MOD/Education project to publish export control and PAO-approved ISS telemetry, and simplified and scrubbed crew timelines. The publication of this data will be real-time or near real time and will include links to the crew's social media feeds and existing streaming public video/audio feeds, via public-friendly website, mobile devices and tablet applications. Additionally, the project will offer interactive virtual 3D views of an ISS model based on real-time telemetry and a 3D virtual mission control center based on existing Front Room console positions in made for public displays. The ISSLive! project is MOD-managed and includes collaborations with subject-matter expertise from the ISS flight controllers regarding daily operations and planning, education program specialists from the JSC Office of Education, instructional designers, human computer interface experts, and software/hardware experts from MOD facility organization, and senior web designers. In support of the Agency s Strategic Goal #6 with respect to using the ISS National Laboratory for education activities, ISSLive! uses the Station itself as STEM education subject matter and provides data for STEM-based lessons plans using national standards. Specifically, ISSLive! supports and enables the National Laboratory Education (NLE) project to address the Agency s Strategic Goal #6. This goal mandates, sharing NASA with the public, educators, and students to provide opportunities to participate in our Mission, foster innovation .. ISSLive! satisfies the Agency s outcomes of Strategic Goal; that is, engages the public in NASA's missions by providing new pathways for participation (Outcome 6.3) and it informs, engages, and inspires the public by sharing NASA s missions, challenges, and results (Outcome 6.4). Additionally, ISSLive! enables MOD s support of JSC Outreach and NASA's Open Data and Open Government Initiatives. The audience for the ISSLive! website and its application(s) are: teachers, students, citizen scientists, and the general public who will be given new and interactive insights on how the ISS Operates.

Price, Jennifer B.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Evaluating the Impact of Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) Data On Convective Forecasts

The Short-term Prediction Research and Transition Center (SPoRT) is a collaborative partnership between NASA and operational forecasting partners, including a number of National Weather Service (NWS) offices. SPoRT provides real-time NASA products and capabilities to its partners to address specific operational forecast challenges. The mission of SPoRT is to transition observations and research capabilities into operations to help improve short-term weather forecasts on a regional scale. Two areas of focus are data assimilation and modeling, which can to help accomplish SPoRT's programmatic goals of transitioning NASA data to operational users. Forecasting convective weather is one challenge that faces operational forecasters. Current numerical weather prediction (NWP) models that operational forecasters use struggle to properly forecast location, timing, intensity and/or mode of convection. Given the proper atmospheric conditions, convection can lead to severe weather. SPoRT's partners in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have a mission to protect the life and property of American citizens. This mission has been tested as recently as this 2011 severe weather season, which has seen more than 300 fatalities and injuries and total damages exceeding $10 billion. In fact, during the three day period from 25-27 April, 1,265 storms reports (362 tornado reports) were collected making this three day period one of most active in American history. To address the forecast challenge of convective weather, SPoRT produces a real-time NWP model called the SPoRT Weather Research and Forecasting (SPoRT-WRF), which incorporates unique NASA data sets. One of the NASA assets used in this unique model configuration is retrieved profiles from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS).The goal of this project is to determine the impact that these AIRS profiles have on the SPoRT-WRF forecasts by comparing to a current operational model and a control SPoRT-WRF model that does not contain AIRS profiles.

Kozlowski, Danielle↗
NASA NTRS2011

A Framework for Successful Research Experiences in the Classroom: Combining the Power of Technology and Mentors

Authentic research opportunities in the classroom are most impactful when they are student-driven and inquiry-based. These experiences are even more powerful when they involve technology and meaningful connections with scientists. In today's classrooms, activities are driven by state required skills, education standards, and state mandated testing. Therefore, programs that incorporate authentic research must address the needs of teachers. NASA's Expedition Earth and Beyond (EEAB) Program has developed a framework that addresses teacher needs and incorporates the use of technology and access to mentors to promote and enhance authentic research in the classroom. EEAB is a student involvement program that facilitates student investigations of Earth or planetary comparisons using NASA data. To promote student-led research, EEAB provides standards-aligned, inquiry-based curricular resources, an implementation structure to facilitate research, educator professional development, and ongoing support. This framework also provides teachers with the option to incorporate the use of technology and connect students with a mentor, both of which can enrich student research experiences. The framework is structured by a modeled 9-step process of science which helps students organize their research. With more schools gaining increased access to technology, EEAB has created an option to help schools take advantage of students' interest and comfort with technology by leveraging the use of available technologies to enhance student research. The use of technology not only allows students to collaborate and share their research, it also provides a mechanism for them to work with a mentor. This framework was tested during the 2010/2011 school year. Team workspaces hosted on Wikispaces for Educators allow students to initiate their research and refine their research question initially without external input. This allows teams to work independently and rely on the skills and interests of team members. Once teams finalize their research question, they are assigned a mentor. The mentor introduces himself/herself, acknowledges the initial work the team has conducted, and asks a focused question to help open the lines of communication. Students continue to communicate with their mentor throughout their research. As research is completed, teams can share their investigation during a virtual presentation. These live presentations allow students to share their research with their mentor, other scientists, other students, parents, and school administrators. After the initial year of testing this authentic research process, EEAB is working to address the many lessons learned. This will allow the program to refine and improve the overall process in an effort to maximize the benefits. Combined, these powerful strategies provide a successful framework to help teachers enhance the skills and motivation of their students, preparing them to become the next generation of scientists, explorers, and STEM-literate citizens of our nation.

Graff, Paige Valderrama↗
NASA NTRS2008

Launch Risk Acceptability: The Public Speaks

The perspective of those assuming risk has become increasingly important to launch agencies. The IAASS white paper "An ICAO for Space?" proposed four ultimate goals of any international regulatory framework. The first of these was to "Ensure that citizens of all nations are equally protected from "unreasonable levels" of risk from overflight by missiles, launch vehicles and returning spacecraft". A key component of this concept is the issue of what is an "unreasonable level" of risk from the perspective of those assuming the risk.

Haber, Jerold M.↗
NASA NTRS2012

The NASA Tournament Laboratory (NTL): Improving Data Access at PDS while Spreading Joy and Engaging Students through 16 Micro-Contests

NASA PDS hosts terabytes of valuable data from hundreds of data sources and spans decades of research. Data is stored on flat-file systems regulated through careful meta dictionaries. PDS's data is available to the public through its website which supports data searches through drill-down navigation. While the system returns data quickly, result sets in response to identical input differ depending on the drill-down path a user follows. To correct this Issue, to allow custom searching, and to improve general accessibility, PDS sought to create a new data structure and API, and to use them to build applications that are a joy to use and showcase the value of the data to students, teachers and citizens. PDS engaged TopCoder and Harvard Business School through the NTL to pursue these objectives in a pilot effort. Scope was limited to Small Bodies Node data. NTL analyzed data, proposed a solution, and implemented it through a series of micro-contests. Contest focused on different segments of the problem; conceptualization, architectural design, implementation, testing, etc. To demonstrate the utility of the completed solution, NTL developed web-based and mobile applications that can compare targets, regardless of mission. To further explore the potential of the solution NTL hosted "Mash-up" challenges that integrated the API with other publically available assets, to produce consumer and teaching applications, including an Augmented Reality iPad tool. Two contests were also posted to middle and high school students via the NoNameSite.com platform, and as a result of these contests, PDS/SBN has initiated a Facebook program. These contests defined and implemented a data warehouse with the necessary migration tools to transform legacy data, produced a public web interface for the new search, developed a public API, and produced four mobile applications that we expect to appeal to users both within and, without the academic community.

LaMora, Andy↗
NASA NTRS2012

Lean for Government: Eliminating the Seven Wastes

With shrinking budgets and a slow economy, it is becoming increasingly important for all government agencies to become more efficient. Citizens expect and deserve efficient and effective services from federal, state and local government agencies. One of the best methods to improve efficiency and eliminate waste is to institute the business process improvement methodologies known collectively as Lean; however, with reduced budgets, it may not be possible to train everyone in Lean or to engage the services of a trained consultant. It is possible, however, to raise awareness of the "Seven Wastes" of Lean in each employee, and encourage them to identify areas for improvement. Management commitment is vital to the success of these initiatives, and it is also important to develop the right metrics that will track the success of these changes.

Shepherd, Christena C.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Utilizing NASA Earth Observing System (EOS) Data to Determine Ideal Planting Locations for Wetland Tree Species in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana

St. Bernard Parish, in southeast Louisiana, is rapidly losing coastal forests and wetlands due to a combination of natural and anthropogenic disturbances (e.g. subsidence, saltwater intrusion, low sedimentation, nutrient deficiency, herbivory, canal dredging, levee construction, spread of invasive species, etc.). After Hurricane Katrina severely impacted the area in 2005, multiple Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have worked not only on rebuilding destroyed dwellings, but on rebuilding the ecosystems that once protected the citizens of St. Bernard Parish. Volunteer groups, NGOs, and government entities often work separately and independently of each other and use different sets of information to choose the best planting sites for coastal forests. Using NASA EOS, NRCS soil surveys, and ancillary road and canal data in conjunction with ground truthing, the team created maps of optimal planting sites for several species of wetland trees to aid in unifying these organizations, who share a common goal, under one plan. The methodology for this project created a comprehensive Geographic Information System (GIS) to help identify suitable planting sites in St. Bernard Parish. This included supplementing existing elevation data using LIDAR data and classifying existing land cover in the study area from ASTER multispectral satellite data. Low altitude AVIRIS hyperspectral imagery was used to assess the health of vegetation over an area near the intersection of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet Canal (MRGO) and Bayou la Loutre. Historic extent of coastal forests was mapped using aerial photos from USGS collected between 1952 and 1956. The final products demonstrated the utility of combining NASA EOS with other geospatial data in assessing, monitoring, and restoring of coastal ecosystems in Louisiana. This methodology also provides a useful template for other ecological forecasting and coastal restoration applications.

Reahard, Ross↗
NASA NTRS2013

Software Tools to Support the Assessment of System Health

This presentation provides an overview of three software tools that were developed by the NASA Glenn Research Center to support the assessment of system health: the Propulsion Diagnostic Method Evaluation Strategy (ProDIMES), the Systematic Sensor Selection Strategy (S4), and the Extended Testability Analysis (ETA) tool. Originally developed to support specific NASA projects in aeronautics and space, these software tools are currently available to U.S. citizens through the NASA Glenn Software Catalog. The ProDiMES software tool was developed to support a uniform comparison of propulsion gas path diagnostic methods. Methods published in the open literature are typically applied to dissimilar platforms with different levels of complexity. They often address different diagnostic problems and use inconsistent metrics for evaluating performance. As a result, it is difficult to perform a one ]to ]one comparison of the various diagnostic methods. ProDIMES solves this problem by serving as a theme problem to aid in propulsion gas path diagnostic technology development and evaluation. The overall goal is to provide a tool that will serve as an industry standard, and will truly facilitate the development and evaluation of significant Engine Health Management (EHM) capabilities. ProDiMES has been developed under a collaborative project of The Technical Cooperation Program (TTCP) based on feedback provided by individuals within the aircraft engine health management community. The S4 software tool provides a framework that supports the optimal selection of sensors for health management assessments. S4 is structured to accommodate user ]defined applications, diagnostic systems, search techniques, and system requirements/constraints. One or more sensor suites that maximize this performance while meeting other user ]defined system requirements that are presumed to exist. S4 provides a systematic approach for evaluating combinations of sensors to determine the set or sets of sensors that optimally meet the performance goals and the constraints. It identifies optimal sensor suite solutions by utilizing a merit (i.e., cost) function with one of several available optimization approaches. As part of its analysis, S4 can expose fault conditions that are difficult to diagnose due to an incomplete diagnostic philosophy and/or a lack of sensors. S4 was originally developed and applied to liquid rocket engines. It was subsequently used to study the optimized selection of sensors for a simulation ]based aircraft engine diagnostic system. The ETA Tool is a software ]based analysis tool that augments the testability analysis and reporting capabilities of a commercial ]off ]the ]shelf (COTS) package. An initial diagnostic assessment is performed by the COTS software using a user ]developed, qualitative, directed ]graph model of the system being analyzed. The ETA Tool accesses system design information captured within the model and the associated testability analysis output to create a series of six reports for various system engineering needs. These reports are highlighted in the presentation. The ETA Tool was developed by NASA to support the verification of fault management requirements early in the Launch Vehicle process. Due to their early development during the design process, the TEAMS ]based diagnostic model and the ETA Tool were able to positively influence the system design by highlighting gaps in failure detection, fault isolation, and failure recovery.

Melcher, Kevin J.↗
NASA NTRS2012

The Distribution of Interplanetary Dust between 0.96 and 1.04 au as Inferred from Impacts on the STEREO Spacecraft Observed by the Heliospheric Imagers

The distribution of dust in the ecliptic plane between 0.96 and 1.04 au has been inferred from impacts on the two Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft through observation of secondary particle trails and unexpected off-points in the heliospheric imager (HI) cameras. This study made use of analysis carried out by members of a distributed webbased citizen science project Solar Stormwatch. A comparison between observations of the brightest particle trails and a survey of fainter trails shows consistent distributions. While there is no obvious correlation between this distribution and the occurrence of individual meteor streams at Earth, there are some broad longitudinal features in these distributions that are also observed in sources of the sporadic meteor population. The different position of the HI instrument on the two STEREO spacecraft leads to each sampling different populations of dust particles. The asymmetry in the number of trails seen by each spacecraft and the fact that there are many more unexpected off-points in the HI-B than in HI-A indicates that the majority of impacts are coming from the apex direction. For impacts causing off-points in the HI-B camera, these dust particles are estimated to have masses in excess of 10 (exp−17) kg with radii exceeding 0.1 μm. For off-points observed in the HI-A images, which can only have been caused by particles travelling from the anti-apex direction, the distribution is consistent with that of secondary 'storm' trails observed by HI-B, providing evidence that these trails also result from impacts with primary particles from an anti-apex source. Investigating the mass distribution for the off-points of both HI-A and HI-B, it is apparent that the differential mass index of particles from the apex direction (causing off-points in HI-B) is consistently above 2. This indicates that the majority of the mass is within the smaller particles of this population. In contrast, the differential mass index of particles from the anti-apex direction (causing off-points in HI-A) is consistently below 2, indicating that the majority of the mass is to be found in larger particles of this distribution.

Davis, C. J.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Researcher-driven Campaigns Engage Nature's Notebook Participants in Scientific Data Collection

One of the many benefits of citizen science projects is the capacity they hold for facilitating data collection on a grand scale and thereby enabling scientists to answer questions they would otherwise not been able to address. Nature's Notebook, the plant and animal phenology observing program of the USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) suitable for scientists and non-scientists alike, offers scientifically-vetted data collection protocols and infrastructure and mechanisms to quickly reach out to hundreds to thousands of potential contributors. The USA-NPN has recently partnered with several research teams to engage participants in contributing to specific studies. In one example, a team of scientists from NASA, the New Mexico Department of Health, and universities in Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and California are using juniper phenology observations submitted by Nature's Notebookparticipants to improve predictions of pollen release and inform asthma and allergy alerts. In a second effort, researchers from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science are engaging Nature's Notebookparticipants in tracking leafing phenophases of poplars across the U.S. These observations will be compared to information acquired via satellite imagery and used to determine geographic areas where the tree species are most and least adapted to predicted climate change. Researchers in these partnerships receive benefits primarily in the form of ground observations. Launched in 2010, the juniper pollen effort has engaged participants in several western states and has yielded thousands of observations that can play a role in model ground validation. Periodic evaluation of these observations has prompted the team to improve and enhance the materials that participants receive, in an effort to boost data quality. The poplar project is formally launching in spring of 2013 and will run for three years; preliminary findings from 2013 will be presented. Participants in these special campaigns benefit through direct engagement in science. This form of researcher partnership has now been successfully pilot-tested and implemented in several instances, and provides a template for future research project campaigns.

Crimmins, Theresa M.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Researcher-driven Campaigns Engage Nature's Notebook Participants in Scientific Data Collection

One of the many benefits of citizen science projects is the capacity they hold for facilitating data collection on a grand scale and thereby enabling scientists to answer questions they would otherwise not been able to address. Nature's Notebook, the plant and animal phenology observing program of the USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) suitable for scientists and non-scientists alike, offers scientifically-vetted data collection protocols and infrastructure and mechanisms to quickly reach out to hundreds to thousands of potential contributors. The USA-NPN has recently partnered with several research teams to engage participants in contributing to specific studies. In one example, a team of scientists from NASA, the New Mexico Department of Health, and universities in Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and California are using juniper phenology observations submitted by Nature's Notebookparticipants to improve predictions of pollen release and inform asthma and allergy alerts. In a second effort, researchers from the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science are engaging Nature's Notebookparticipants in tracking leafing phenophases of poplars across the U.S. These observations will be compared to information acquired via satellite imagery and used to determine geographic areas where the tree species are most and least adapted to predicted climate change. Results/Conclusions Researchers in these partnerships receive benefits primarily in the form of ground observations. Launched in 2010, the juniper pollen effort has engaged participants in several western states and has yielded thousands of observations that can play a role in model ground validation. Periodic evaluation of these observations has prompted the team to improve and enhance the materials that participants receive, in an effort to boost data quality. The poplar project is formally launching in spring of 2013 and will run for three years; preliminary findings from 2013 will be presented. Participants in these special campaigns benefit through direct engagement in science. This form of researcher partnership has now been successfully pilot-tested and implemented in several instances, and provides a template for future research project campaigns.

Crimmins, Theresa M.↗