BRYAN, Texas — Students at Allen Academy in Bryan are gearing up to take their own equipment and data alongside NASA interns for this Monday's eclipse.
While at the research site in Meridian, Texas, 10 students will conduct investigations and collect data for NASA's soundscapes project and globe eclipse observer.
“Really what the kids have done is we’re really interested in how nature changes and so while we’re wondering if and how nature changes we’re also taking a lot of other data like barometric pressure, temperature, UV radiation, humidity,” explained science teacher Stephanie Hanover.
The group of middle and high school students are excited to showcase sensors and robots they’ve been building themselves.
This robot is hopefully gonna get, we’re going to start it at the start of the eclipse and see at different points in the area how much solar energy it gets from certain points,” said seventh grader Joe Porter when discussing what he had created for the experiments.
Each student will be working on monitoring and collecting information on different aspects of the eclipse that will be sent to NASA.
“When we go to the eclipse, we’re going to measure atmospheric pressure and how it changes obviously we’re going to be recording animals and how they react and then also here on campus we’re recording animals a couple days before and after, that’s a citizen science project," said eighth grader Kathy Kolasinksi.
These students are getting the chance to follow their passions and apply their knowledge to a once in a lifetime event.
Eighth grader, Ria Agarwal explained the instrument she's been working on, “it’s a speaker and we’re trying to connect it to a solar panel, and it’ll make a noise when the UV rays are detected so we’ll know when that’s happening. I’m just so excited to see this because this is once in a lifetime this is awesome.”
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