{"id":3249,"date":"2025-08-14T02:52:33","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T02:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/science.gsfc.nasa.gov\/stella\/?p=3249"},"modified":"2025-08-21T13:25:25","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T13:25:25","slug":"helio-stella-bridging-space-science-and-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/science.gsfc.nasa.gov\/stella\/helio-stella-bridging-space-science-and-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Helio-STELLA: Bridging Space Science and Education"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"3249\" class=\"elementor elementor-3249\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-f07bd60 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"f07bd60\" data-element_type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-fce42d1 elementor-widget elementor-widget-heading\" data-id=\"fce42d1\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"heading.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h2 class=\"elementor-heading-title elementor-size-default\">Helio-STELLA: Bridging Space Science and Education\n<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-e74181d elementor-widget elementor-widget-video\" data-id=\"e74181d\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-settings=\"{&quot;youtube_url&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/youtu.be\\\/lsaBc9IYwEA?si=6CM95SEoOok20QFh&quot;,&quot;video_type&quot;:&quot;youtube&quot;,&quot;controls&quot;:&quot;yes&quot;}\" data-widget_type=\"video.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-wrapper elementor-open-inline\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-video\"><\/div>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-93ae6e6 e-n-tabs-mobile elementor-widget elementor-widget-n-tabs\" data-id=\"93ae6e6\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-settings=\"{&quot;tabs_justify_horizontal&quot;:&quot;center&quot;,&quot;horizontal_scroll&quot;:&quot;disable&quot;}\" data-widget_type=\"nested-tabs.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-n-tabs\" data-widget-number=\"154855142\" aria-label=\"Tabs. Open items with Enter or Space, close with Escape and navigate using the Arrow keys.\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"e-n-tabs-heading\" role=\"tablist\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<button id=\"e-n-tab-title-1548551421\" class=\"e-n-tab-title\" aria-selected=\"true\" data-tab-index=\"1\" role=\"tab\" tabindex=\"0\" aria-controls=\"e-n-tab-content-1548551421\" style=\"--n-tabs-title-order: 1;\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"e-n-tab-title-text\">\n\t\t\t\tSummary\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/button>\n\t\t\t\t<button id=\"e-n-tab-title-1548551422\" class=\"e-n-tab-title\" aria-selected=\"false\" data-tab-index=\"2\" role=\"tab\" tabindex=\"-1\" aria-controls=\"e-n-tab-content-1548551422\" style=\"--n-tabs-title-order: 2;\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"e-n-tab-title-text\">\n\t\t\t\tTranscript\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/button>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<div class=\"e-n-tabs-content\">\n\t\t\t\t<div id=\"e-n-tab-content-1548551421\" role=\"tabpanel\" aria-labelledby=\"e-n-tab-title-1548551421\" data-tab-index=\"1\" style=\"--n-tabs-title-order: 1;\" class=\"e-active elementor-element elementor-element-85071c9 e-con-full e-flex e-con e-child\" data-id=\"85071c9\" data-element_type=\"container\">\n\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-d1983d8 e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-child\" data-id=\"d1983d8\" data-element_type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-f2d4dd4 elementor-widget elementor-widget-heading\" data-id=\"f2d4dd4\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"heading.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"elementor-heading-title elementor-size-default\">Video Summary<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-4d98aed elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"4d98aed\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p>&#8220;One of the biggest things that I think is the benefit to this tool is that it provides that conduit to give a kid the ability to easily add something to it or think of something themselves to do.&#8221;<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-1ea6394 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"1ea6394\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"relative flex-1 overflow-hidden overflow-y-auto\"><div class=\"relative h-full\"><div class=\"scrollbar-gutter-stable\"><div class=\"flex flex-col pb-9 dark:bg-transparent\"><div class=\"text-token-text-primary w-full border-0 bg-transparent dark:border-0 dark:bg-transparent\"><div class=\"m-auto justify-center p-4 py-2 md:gap-6 \"><div id=\"6b0ab072-e200-4d19-a51d-12ae3a8ada20\" class=\"group mx-auto flex flex-1 gap-3 transition-all duration-300 transform-gpu md:max-w-[47rem] xl:max-w-[55rem] focus:outline-none focus:ring-2 focus:ring-border-xheavy message-render\" aria-label=\"message-89-6b0ab072-e200-4d19-a51d-12ae3a8ada20\"><div class=\"relative flex w-11\/12 flex-col agent-turn\"><div class=\"flex flex-col gap-1\"><div class=\"flex max-w-full flex-grow flex-col gap-0\"><div class=\"text-message flex min-h-[20px] flex-col items-start gap-3 overflow-visible [.text-message+&amp;]:mt-5\" dir=\"auto\"><div class=\"markdown prose message-content dark:prose-invert light w-full break-words dark:text-gray-100\"><h2>Project Origins and Field Testing<\/h2><p class=\"mb-2 whitespace-pre-wrap\">The Helio-STELLA project represents an innovative approach to making heliophysics accessible in educational settings. During the April 2024 total solar eclipse, Dr. Gerald Knezek and his team field-tested an early prototype in Flower Mound, Texas. This early testing successfully demonstrated that UV radiation drops significantly during a total eclipse, providing valuable data while also validating the instrument&#8217;s capabilities.<\/p><p class=\"mb-2 whitespace-pre-wrap\">The testing process wasn&#8217;t without challenges. When the team&#8217;s Surface Pro began overheating during data collection, they demonstrated NASA-worthy problem-solving by creating an improvised cooling system using an upside-down basket with a fan\u2014a solution Dr. Knezek compared to the resourcefulness shown during the Apollo 13 mission.<\/p><h2>Educational Applications<\/h2><p class=\"mb-2 whitespace-pre-wrap\">Dr. Knezek, with his extensive experience in education at the University of North Texas (UNT), has integrated Helio-STELLA into teacher preparation programs. Pre-service teachers participate in technology generation classes where they can learn to use this innovative solar monitoring technology.<\/p><p class=\"mb-2 whitespace-pre-wrap\">Dr. Fred McMahan, an assistant professor in learning technologies with a focus on next-generation tech development, brings his expertise to help ensure Helio-STELLA meets the needs of future classrooms. His background in preparing students for emerging technologies makes him ideally suited to bridge the gap between advanced heliophysics concepts and practical classroom applications.<\/p><p class=\"mb-2 whitespace-pre-wrap\">Together, Dr. Knezek and Dr. McMahan have demonstrated how Helio-STELLA transforms passive learning into active investigation. The educational value extends beyond solar science to include engineering principles, data analysis, and computational thinking\u2014all critical skills for future STEM professionals.<\/p><h2>Technical Evolution and Future Vision<\/h2><p class=\"mb-2 whitespace-pre-wrap\">Dr. McMahan envisions significant technical enhancements for Helio-STELLA, particularly adding Wi-Fi capabilities that would enable real-time data transmission to students&#8217; devices. This would allow an entire classroom to observe solar measurements simultaneously, rather than taking turns with a single device or having to manually transfer data from an SD card.<\/p><p class=\"mb-2 whitespace-pre-wrap\">Dr. Knezek shared a broader vision for public engagement, suggesting that Helio-STELLA readings could eventually be incorporated into weather forecasts, similar to how UV index information is now standard. He specifically mentioned the potential value during solar storms, connecting classroom science to real-world space weather events that affect communications and other systems.<\/p><h2>Addressing Educational Barriers<\/h2><p class=\"mb-2 whitespace-pre-wrap\">Both educators recognize the significant time constraints faced by teachers. They emphasize that successful technology adoption in education requires minimizing the learning curve for busy educators while maximizing educational impact for students. Their approach focuses on creating clear documentation, accessible designs, and simple operational procedures.<\/p><p class=\"mb-2 whitespace-pre-wrap\">This practical perspective reflects Dr. Knezek&#8217;s extensive experience working with teachers, including many who have been collaborating with their programs for many years. This long-term relationship has provided valuable insights into the real-world challenges of technology integration in educational settings.<\/p><h2>Space-to-Classroom Connection<\/h2><p class=\"mb-2 whitespace-pre-wrap\">The team&#8217;s work with Helio-STELLA demonstrates the instrument&#8217;s ability to capture meaningful space weather data. For example, during the May 10th solar storm, Dr. Knezek&#8217;s son alerted him at 3am from Seattle about the event, prompting him to set up his Helio-STELLA unit on a picnic table to collect data. The resulting measurements showed significant disturbances that aligned with official NOAA data but revealed more detailed local variations.<\/p><p class=\"mb-2 whitespace-pre-wrap\">The collaboration between Dr. Knezek and Dr. McMahan exemplifies how NASA-inspired technology can be adapted for educational purposes. Their work with Helio-STELLA is helping transform how solar science is taught, making it more engaging, accessible, and connected to real-world phenomena\u2014potentially inspiring a new generation of space scientists and engineers<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div id=\"e-n-tab-content-1548551422\" role=\"tabpanel\" aria-labelledby=\"e-n-tab-title-1548551422\" data-tab-index=\"2\" style=\"--n-tabs-title-order: 2;\" class=\" elementor-element elementor-element-6400726 e-con-full e-flex e-con e-child\" data-id=\"6400726\" data-element_type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-1a6d38c elementor-widget elementor-widget-heading\" data-id=\"1a6d38c\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"heading.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<h3 class=\"elementor-heading-title elementor-size-default\">Transcript<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-a3b837b elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"a3b837b\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-widget-container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"relative flex flex-shrink-0 flex-col items-center\"><div class=\"flex h-6 w-6 items-center justify-center overflow-hidden rounded-full\"><div class=\"relative flex h-9 w-9 items-center justify-center rounded-sm p-1 text-white\" title=\"All ChatGSFC\"><div class=\"h-6 w-6\"><div class=\"overflow-hidden rounded-full\"><p>00:00:08:13 &#8211; 00:00:25:06<br \/>Unknown<br \/>I&#8217;m here with, Gerald Knezek. Is that how you pronounce it? And as it gets pretty close. Oh, okay. Fantastic. And, Fred, I don&#8217;t know what because your last name is up here, but if you&#8217;re not careful. Yeah. Fred McMahan, Fred McMahan hand.<\/p><p>00:00:25:06 &#8211; 00:00:38:10<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Fred MacMahan and Gerald Knezek. Okay. All right. And so, I guess we&#8217;ll start with Gerald. Can you give me your background, please? And just, you know, some information about who you are?<\/p><p>00:00:38:10 &#8211; 00:00:49:09<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Sure. What do you think, Gerald Knezek here? I&#8217;m in my 41st year at unity. I&#8217;m a recent professor of learning technologies.<\/p><p>00:00:49:10 &#8211; 00:01:18:13<br \/>Unknown<br \/>I work a lot with STEM education and initiatives. And so that&#8217;s how we, got involved with, NASA starting in 2015 or 16 and, have been there ever since. Awesome, awesome. Okay. And Fred. Yeah. So I&#8217;m an assistant professor and learning technologies. And and I haven&#8217;t been here quite as long as Gerald, but, hopefully I&#8217;ll be an associate professor next year.<\/p><p>00:01:18:14 &#8211; 00:01:43:08<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And then, my main area background is actually rightly&#8230; lately and a lot of development of next generation tech. And so we&#8217;re really focused on what&#8217;s going to be coming down the road ten years from now. You know, that we can prepare our students for and actually just preparing the world for it as well. That kind of makes sense.<\/p><p>00:01:43:10 &#8211; 00:01:54:05<br \/>Unknown<br \/>So, because the we are moving at a light speed pace now with technology and we have to try to stay ahead of it too.<\/p><p>00:01:57:14 &#8211; 00:02:23:04<br \/>Unknown<br \/>and I&#8217;ll say Pat Haas and Carolyn Ng did a wonderful job presenting that this was at site, and again Elana I&#8217;ve, had a 29 year history with the society for Information Technology and Teacher Education. And so they&#8217;re the ones that teach technology techniques to the future teachers. And, and so this was, a presentation there, and it was well received, I think.<\/p><p>00:02:23:05 &#8211; 00:02:42:13<br \/>Unknown<br \/>I&#8217;m not sure how many of you were there in the cotton Bowl in Dallas or the Arboretum, but quite a few of your group and and they were tried out. Ours was not actually put together yet. Pat just gave me, our kit the next day, and so I&#8217;ll get to that in a moment. But there were several of these.<\/p><p>00:02:42:13 &#8211; 00:03:02:06<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Try it out. And I was always amazed. I wish I could make my graphs look like these two that, I think maybe, maybe. Paul, you made that graph. I&#8217;m not sure, but ours lines up quite nicely. And of course, we had lots of different locations. You can see in the picture with Pat, this was the, the day before.<\/p><p>00:03:02:06 &#8211; 00:03:06:01<br \/>Unknown<br \/>It was Saturday before the Monday eclipse. And Fred was there, too.<\/p><p>00:03:06:01 &#8211; 00:03:17:14<br \/>Unknown<br \/>middle school teachers in the picture that came from, neighborhood schools. Most of them have been with us for 15 years also. So the theme you&#8217;ll find is we&#8217;re kind of in it for the long haul.<\/p><p>00:03:17:15 &#8211; 00:03:24:10<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And, I&#8217;m hoping that, What? I&#8217;m so glad Fred is here. My long haul might not be too many more years, but<\/p><p>00:03:24:10 &#8211; 00:03:34:02<br \/>Unknown<br \/>I think he&#8217;s got quite a few. It, And I think this was, Pat Haas measure of the UVA and several of the things that, changed during the eclipse. And I&#8217;m<\/p><p>00:03:34:02 &#8211; 00:03:35:13<br \/>Unknown<br \/>sure you&#8217;ve all seen this picture and the<\/p><p>00:03:35:13 &#8211; 00:03:36:08<br \/>Unknown<br \/>explanations.<\/p><p>00:03:36:09 &#8211; 00:04:05:15<br \/>Unknown<br \/>This was from from our, our instrument. That was, let&#8217;s see, this is. Yeah, this is about May the 11th, actually, on May the 10th, the what happened? And I had no idea. I wasn&#8217;t watching things, but this picture was sent at 3 a.m. from Seattle by my son. He was at May the 10th. He was outside and said, hey, dad, I think you&#8217;re you&#8217;re going to have, time to turn your meter on.<\/p><p>00:04:05:15 &#8211; 00:04:24:14<br \/>Unknown<br \/>My wife had a craft fair eight hours the next day in Farmham. So I took, literally our black version of this meter, just set it on the picnic table and turned it on. That run for seven hours. And that&#8217;s where these graphs came from. I didn&#8217;t know it was going to kind of blow the top out.<\/p><p>00:04:24:14 &#8211; 00:04:45:09<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And, and the other Pat from, used to be from NASA headquarters. I forgotten his last name. He was in, Alaska with us. He was most impressed with this picture, the one that I don&#8217;t know if you can see the screen, the black lines, because we tried to, we we did. Careful.<\/p><p>00:04:45:09 &#8211; 00:04:52:12<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Well, I will say, Paul, Paul just graduated in computer science, so he&#8217;s like Fred&#8217;s understudy in some ways, but.<\/p><p>00:04:52:15 &#8211; 00:05:22:00<br \/>Unknown<br \/>So his Python code is magical. And I said, hey, can you overlay what we we saw on top of that? I think it&#8217;s a DST index there. And so really what happens locally is much more zigzag than what you see on the smooth curve. The red line is from Noah, and the black line is what I recorded that day, from the picnic table with with the STELLA instrument pointing straight up and just running.<\/p><p>00:05:22:02 &#8211; 00:05:27:13<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And so I think there&#8217;s a lot of local variation, probably everywhere, but probably you already knew that.<\/p><p>00:05:27:13 &#8211; 00:05:47:08<br \/>Unknown<br \/>But I was a little surprised also, we we converted to KP, and, Paul will kill me now, but I found that that, through our area chat bots and said, hey, if you just divide all the, all the total, color spectrum irradiance by two, it&#8217;ll be pretty close.<\/p><p>00:05:47:10 &#8211; 00:06:08:11<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And so that&#8217;s what we use, and it turns out it lines up. So when you sum whatever came out of the, the Helio-STELLA, on the color spectrums and then divide it by two, that&#8217;s this line. And, for whatever reason, Paul, I&#8217;m sure you will tell me. It makes no sense at all. It kind of lines up quite well.<\/p><p>00:06:08:11 &#8211; 00:06:14:00<br \/>Unknown<br \/>So that&#8217;s the the limit of my, prediction science. In any<\/p><p>00:06:14:00 &#8211; 00:06:33:09<br \/>Unknown<br \/>case, as I mentioned in the beginning, we&#8217;re really interested in this whole sunburn thing. It became popular in all of our schools since Jimmy Buffett died of skin cancer. And it wasn&#8217;t the students who knew who it was until their teachers came and said, hey, you guys better put on sunscreen when you&#8217;re, out in the sun.<\/p><p>00:06:33:09 &#8211; 00:06:39:07<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And again, places like Hawaii or Florida caught, all of Texas. It&#8217;s very<\/p><p>00:06:39:07 &#8211; 00:06:59:03<br \/>Unknown<br \/>important. This was our version of the UVA. So you probably never heard of Roger Wagner, but he&#8217;s been a colleague for 40 years. He was a hyper studio creator, and now he does, Arduino kits and stuff. And so he made me a famous Roger pizza box with a UV meter.<\/p><p>00:06:59:03 &#8211; 00:07:25:01<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And my son, that&#8217;s Microsoft computer engineer, hooked it up to his Surface Pro in my yard in Flower Mound and recorded all day long while we were at the arboretum. So this is where I tell people we kind of, prove that you can&#8217;t get sunburned during a total eclipse. And, that&#8217;s the. Yeah, maybe that&#8217;s obvious, but anyway, this is comparable to what comes out of the Helio-STELLA.<\/p><p>00:07:25:01 &#8211; 00:07:33:13<br \/>Unknown<br \/>But it was actually a pizza box, running to a Arduino that was feeding a live feed into, storage on, Microsoft Surface Pro.<\/p><p>00:07:33:13 &#8211; 00:07:45:11<br \/>Unknown<br \/>I think there&#8217;s a picture. Maybe. Let&#8217;s see if I can find that. Nope. I&#8217;m going backwards. Oh, no, I&#8217;m I&#8217;m not. It&#8217;s not there. But we have that somewhere alright. The big crisis was.<\/p><p>00:07:45:11 &#8211; 00:08:07:06<br \/>Unknown<br \/>The Surface Pro got too hot, so my my son had to bring a fan outside, and he turned upside down. Closed basket and, made a cooling fan out of it and some crisis. So. Sounds a little bit like Apollo 13, I guess. There. Okay. Implications for teacher education. This is where I think there really is a future.<\/p><p>00:08:07:06 &#8211; 00:08:07:08<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And<\/p><p>00:08:07:08 &#8211; 00:08:27:05<br \/>Unknown<br \/>This is your forte. We know now that not just Fred and I, but there are a bunch of people all around us, teachers in particular, and also pre-service teachers that we teach the technology generation class for all 400 pre-service candidates that graduate from you UNT each year.<\/p><p>00:08:27:06 &#8211; 00:08:48:11<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And so that&#8217;s a service course for our department. And we&#8217;d love to incorporate a component in that connected with our lab. But remote sensing instrumentation and all of those kinds of things, PBL that&#8217;s also in, Fred&#8217;s, neck of the woods. And this was the summary that,<\/p><p>00:08:48:11 &#8211; 00:08:51:14<br \/>Unknown<br \/>I believe Pat gave at that presentation.<\/p><p>00:08:51:14 &#8211; 00:09:17:14<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And I agree with all that. I think you&#8217;ve all heard it&#8217;s hand held as part of pointed out. You can hang it on the wall. It&#8217;s easy to assemble. Probably even I could do it. The spectrometer is amazing. I&#8217;m amazed at how much it lines up like right now. I was recording two hours earlier. We have a lot of KP 4.5 right now going on, and so when it&#8217;s above four I try to grab it, but there are three hours behind.<\/p><p>00:09:17:15 &#8211; 00:09:37:07<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And and Paul, this is a compliment to you. I just started looking at the some of the STELLA right answers and go, oh, it&#8217;s going up and, it&#8217;s so I keep it running. Otherwise, as Fred points out, sometimes when it gets above 110 in Texas, it still melts the case. So we have to worry a little bit about that.<\/p><p>00:09:37:07 &#8211; 00:09:46:12<br \/>Unknown<br \/>But, but the instruments work quite well. Well into presentation. Thank you. I hope it wasn&#8217;t too fast or too scattered<\/p><p>00:09:50:10 &#8211; 00:10:05:02<br \/>Unknown<br \/>In your presentation, we saw STELLA being used at the Dallas Cotton Ball and, Dallas Arboretum, during the 2024 eclipse. Right. What, what unique data were you able to collect during these events that passed?<\/p><p>00:10:05:04 &#8211; 00:10:08:14<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Might not have been possible without, Helio. STELLA.<\/p><p>00:10:08:14 &#8211; 00:10:28:05<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Yeah, I know, just. What data did you collect specifically? Sure. I&#8217;ll review that, too. But before I forget, I wanted to show, I guess in the camera. The latest one. That&#8217;s, Fred&#8217;s creation, where he added a magnetometer. And I&#8217;m anxious to, carry this. I actually recorded some data earlier today.<\/p><p>00:10:28:05 &#8211; 00:11:03:09<br \/>Unknown<br \/>It&#8217;s only about a KP3 this afternoon, but, for trying to figure out how can we get a simple formula that middle school kids, would understand. That is as far as if they were out in the afternoon sun. Recording data and so far. Now, to get to your point, we still have good success with teachers and teachers to be an even parents and kids with giving them a set of binoculars where they can still see sunspots during the current cycle phase.<\/p><p>00:11:03:10 &#8211; 00:11:26:06<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And I always remind them, when my flight used to be diverted 11 years ago when we were flying a little bit more around the world, around the North Pole side, and it&#8217;s not so frequent anymore, but, occasionally it still happens. So how is it relevant to the real world? What do we find from the Cotton Ball and so forth?<\/p><p>00:11:26:06 &#8211; 00:11:48:04<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Is, we always have to wait at least 3 to 6 hours before we knew if there were solar storms coming or whatever, and it was usually after the fact. And, now we&#8217;ve learned since I was a former math major to sort of, look at the curve and see where it&#8217;s going and put our, our STELLA out when we think it&#8217;s going to be something exciting.<\/p><p>00:11:48:06 &#8211; 00:12:10:08<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Or as I think I mentioned when we last met, that, my son, at three in the morning for me, had texted me on May the 10th because he was, outside of Seattle camping and said, wow, look at these auroras. And so, since my wife had, a craft fair event all day the next day, I just said, are still out on the table.<\/p><p>00:12:10:08 &#8211; 00:12:41:05<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And that&#8217;s some of the best data we&#8217;ve ever gotten, including during the eclipse, over the years. And so, you just never know. But actually, instant, just in time. Like, we had a big storm here yesterday, but is no clouds at all today. So I stuck my STELLA out for an hour, and I, I&#8217;m anxious to get home and and put, the data in a spreadsheet and, see how it lines up with what the official people got.<\/p><p>00:12:41:06 &#8211; 00:13:04:03<br \/>Unknown<br \/>But I think I also might have mentioned to some of you, if you&#8217;ve been in, in the sessions before, what we really find is that our local K index just jumps around a lot compared to what we get from NOAA. And, and we think our data, the points are real. And so it gives me a whole new perspective.<\/p><p>00:13:04:03 &#8211; 00:13:44:08<br \/>Unknown<br \/>But a lot of people also like local variations might be very important sometimes. And I might have mentioned I&#8217;m not sure I even think that, especially on 90.1MHz, where I listen to the radio a lot when I&#8217;m driving in to work, about 30 minutes, if the static is so bad that I hardly can hear, we&#8217;re, almost 50 miles outside of Dallas that, if if it&#8217;s, I immediately go and, Google and see what the KP index is, and, and if it&#8217;s high, then I sticker still out and see what it really was.<\/p><p>00:13:44:09 &#8211; 00:14:14:09<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And so with that, I don&#8217;t know, maybe I&#8217;ll turn this over to Fred for a bit, because he was actually in the formal training the day before the eclipse or two days before that was, brought to us by, your colleagues at Goddard at NASA. So, Fred, I love it for you. And I think the biggest thing too that was found was, you know, there&#8217;s that myth that the UV shoots up right when you, during a solar eclipse.<\/p><p>00:14:14:11 &#8211; 00:14:38:05<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Right? So. Oh, it&#8217;s dangerous to be outside because the UV is is higher at that point. But the STELLA proved and showed that that wasn&#8217;t actually the case. Right. The UV just completely goes away. And we could see that in the Helio-STELLA and as far as education standpoint, I mean, teaching the color spectrums and understanding where the color light comes from, I think is very beneficial.<\/p><p>00:14:38:06 &#8211; 00:15:05:13<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And, you know, and doing that and adding the magnetometer hopes to add just a little bit more to that data. Right. To that. Well, what exactly is happening during these solar events that we&#8217;re getting? And how can we teach kids better ways to, understand that and protect our planet in that sense? So what we need to do.<\/p><p>00:15:09:10 &#8211; 00:15:15:15<br \/>Unknown<br \/>beyond eclipse observations and you already touched on this a bit, what are other heliophysics phenomena?<\/p><p>00:15:16:02 &#8211; 00:15:24:09<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And Helio-STELLA help students observe and understand that might otherwise be inaccessible and typical classroom settings.<\/p><p>00:15:24:09 &#8211; 00:15:49:10<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Well, I&#8217;ll start with one. I, for me, when we say eclipse, everyone thinks total eclipse. But the annular one, when I was sitting in San Antonio, to me it was almost as fascinating. Actually, your eyes adjust during an annular eclipse, and probably you knew that, but I didn&#8217;t.<\/p><p>00:15:49:11 &#8211; 00:16:20:03<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And so it was only the fact that. Wait a minute. It started out at 92 degrees, and then everyone got cold and we had to take blankets in in San Antonio, Texas, you know, take them outside on the deck. And so I was wondering, actually, I also had, a UV sensor, that was commercial that I was setting out to, to see if my eyes automatically adjusted until my brain that it was still total daylight.<\/p><p>00:16:20:05 &#8211; 00:17:00:06<br \/>Unknown<br \/>What did the measurements show? And so, I was only looking at the UV out of, of, that at the time, but had I had a, Helio-STELLA with me, this was October 2024, and we didn&#8217;t have it yet. I would have really had a systematic view. And so, I know that, eclipse again, but, there, if I could switch gears and then, also go to Fred, because if we really think, I think in my younger days, I used to do a lot more of, engineering design concepts in what we would call computational thinking.<\/p><p>00:17:00:07 &#8211; 00:17:25:14<br \/>Unknown<br \/>That is, what can you do with data that you could get from stuff that you&#8217;re not quick enough or can&#8217;t remember enough sets to do? And, and so, I don&#8217;t know, Fred, would you have ideas still ahead? Well, yeah. So besides what I said before, I think the other thing that I would point out is it teaches Stem better and engineering better specifically, like programing and things like that.<\/p><p>00:17:25:14 &#8211; 00:17:46:07<br \/>Unknown<br \/>So giving it to a kid and saying, what can you do with it and what could we tweak on it to make it do something that it didn&#8217;t do before? Right. So it&#8217;s giving you that that thinking about what making them critically think about what you can do with this. Right. Because they should be the ones coming up.<\/p><p>00:17:46:07 &#8211; 00:18:21:01<br \/>Unknown<br \/>We have ideas, but they should be the ones coming up with these new ideas and saying, oh, we should add a magnetometer to it so that we can see what&#8217;s happening and, you know, different positions and things like that. And so I think that&#8217;s probably for me, one of the biggest things that I think is the benefit to this tool is that it provides that conduit to give a kid the ability to easily add something to it or think of something themselves to do, and use that data in new ways that maybe you wouldn&#8217;t even to thought about in the past.<\/p><p>00:18:24:12 &#8211; 00:18:35:00<br \/>Unknown<br \/>and, the presentation identifies remote sensing, spectrum analysis, instrumentation and fabrication is key areas where Helio-STELLA supports teacher education, which is these areas.<\/p><p>00:18:35:00 &#8211; 00:18:53:04<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Have you found, teachers struggle with the most? And how does Helio Stella. Or as a Stella in general, help address these types of, challenges? And this could go to both you, Gerald inference or. Yeah.<\/p><p>00:18:53:04 &#8211; 00:19:05:14<br \/>Unknown<br \/>I think it&#8217;s that, accessibility to, the resources. Right. And clear instructions. So teachers are very busy people, right?<\/p><p>00:19:05:14 &#8211; 00:19:34:11<br \/>Unknown<br \/>They&#8217;re very overworked. And I think, you know, one of the benefits that we had was during the eclipse is, the heliophysics had come in and they were giving sessions to teachers to train them on these kind of tools. And I think it would be good, almost like if there was like in there may be already out there, but almost like a series where teachers could watch videos or watch these types of instrumentation to give them ideas.<\/p><p>00:19:34:15 &#8211; 00:19:56:01<br \/>Unknown<br \/>A lot of it, it&#8217;s just verbal documentation. It&#8217;s a lot of to read and and things like that. And I noticed there&#8217;s just quite a bit of change that happens on the website, and things kind of get shifted around and lost. And I think that would be a great benefit to them to make them more engaged too.<\/p><p>00:19:56:02 &#8211; 00:20:20:02<br \/>Unknown<br \/>You have to account for their time if they want you want them to use these tools. You have to make it viable for them to use it because they don&#8217;t have time to go spend hours upon hours learning these things. And it&#8217;s it&#8217;s more like a simplification. The documentation is very done very well, but I think that it still needs to be taken to another level to make it even easier for these teachers.<\/p><p>00:20:20:02 &#8211; 00:20:44:03<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Could I add 1 or 2 there? Oh yeah. Please. Oh yeah. There is. I would say that, if I could divide teachers or potential teachers into two groups. One is the In-Service teacher group, and they really only have time for some kind of quick make it, take it, you know, their, something where with a takeaway.<\/p><p>00:20:44:06 &#8211; 00:21:08:09<br \/>Unknown<br \/>So after third grade teachers has kids growing the implant. They need, very clearly documented, easy to use, easy to implement, system like Fred was mentioning, so that they could just come in and turn it on and have third graders, do it, and and it would be meaningful. I mean, the pictures on the screen, everybody now has projection capabilities.<\/p><p>00:21:08:12 &#8211; 00:21:49:06<br \/>Unknown<br \/>So that&#8217;s in-service teachers, where we also teach the, Technology Tools for educators course to all pre-service teachers that you. And that&#8217;ll be about 750 new ones each year. We usually catch them in their second year for our required course of technology integration. I wish that we would have every one of those pre-service teachers go through a lab Hands-On exercise, where they do some of the fabrication, my own children too, and maybe all three of them got their college research assistantships because they knew how to solder and use a pair of pliers and a screwdriver.<\/p><p>00:21:49:08 &#8211; 00:22:19:04<br \/>Unknown<br \/>It&#8217;s, unusual, especially for anyone who&#8217;s going to be a teacher these days. I mean, maybe they can use Google everything, but I, I asked them to fix the doorknob, and, it will, I won&#8217;t say impossible. They&#8217;re just never been exposed to that kind of stuff. But the next generation, I think, like Fred said, for we need STEM education everywhere, you know, STEM as a tool for solving the world&#8217;s problems.<\/p><p>00:22:19:05 &#8211; 00:22:46:11<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Is, really our root. And so there&#8217;s very little, hands on, touch it, kind of activities and, and even just popping these components together would, would be something that would be manageable in a three hour unit and then, require them to do a little micro project where they would do something in innovation, innovative, by the end of our, you know, simple three credit, our service course.<\/p><p>00:22:46:12 &#8211; 00:23:01:02<br \/>Unknown<br \/>That would be wonderful. In my opinion, a hands on lab activity where I across the hall from, engineering school at our university. They all have labs all the time. So why don&#8217;t we, for pre-service teachers<\/p><p>00:23:04:15 &#8211; 00:23:14:01<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Your problem your slides mentioned problem based learning PBL as a key. Pedagogical. That&#8217;s a fun to say, pedagogical approach with Helio-STELLA.<\/p><p>00:23:14:01 &#8211; 00:23:25:08<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Could you share a specific example of a successful PBL implementation that improve student outcomes or teacher confidence, say, with hopefully with your your style?<\/p><p>00:23:25:08 &#8211; 00:23:40:12<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Okay. Well, I guess I would to go back to the earlier STELLA example, when our, co-director of our center here where we&#8217;re sitting, doctor Christiansen was a former third grade teacher.<\/p><p>00:23:40:14 &#8211; 00:24:03:06<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And when Paul came, she said, wow, I used to have my kids grow up being plants. And, could we have them, test. It was STELLA, like, every week in the window or maybe even every day. And, and Paul just pulled it out and said, well, why don&#8217;t you try it? And so, she did. And that convinced us that, any teacher could actually do that.<\/p><p>00:24:03:10 &#8211; 00:24:26:00<br \/>Unknown<br \/>We didn&#8217;t actually have, have her grow a bean plant there, but we found various levels of plants and then pulled the SD card out and looked at them on the screen and could see that any teacher that was, not terribly afraid of touching, an SD card or knew how to use any kind of a spreadsheet program could do this.<\/p><p>00:24:26:04 &#8211; 00:24:29:02<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And so that was one example. Very early on.<\/p><p>00:24:29:02 &#8211; 00:24:56:02<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Yeah. And I think, probably Fred&#8217;s already mentioned this, but I know we&#8217;re so happy he&#8217;s here because of, I&#8217;ll call it the computational thinking aspect of it. This whole idea of you find a problem if you&#8217;re if you&#8217;re at all versed in PBL type learning, whether it&#8217;s a project or, or problem based learning and your vocabulary, I think there&#8217;s great potential for that.<\/p><p>00:24:56:02 &#8211; 00:25:24:14<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And, actually, you know, a lot of our faculty even are not schooled anymore in these techniques, and it&#8217;s something we&#8217;re really going to be in trouble for if we don&#8217;t convey it to the next generation. And that&#8217;s where I think that was one of the things I was just thinking about because, teaching kids critical thinking is now harder than ever before because we have these tools that don&#8217;t make you have to critically think.<\/p><p>00:25:25:00 &#8211; 00:25:56:10<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Right. ChatGPT things like this, you know, so kids can just go get the answer faster than they used to. Just Google it. Right. So when I was a kid and Google came out I was like oh I get the answer by googling it now it&#8217;s even faster. Right? And so you have to develop tools that the, tools to still teach critical thinking, sorry, tools to teach critically thinking that are, can&#8217;t be solved by ChatGPT, right?<\/p><p>00:25:56:10 &#8211; 00:26:23:02<br \/>Unknown<br \/>They can&#8217;t be done by these, generative AI systems like this. STELLA. Right. Putting your hands on this physical device, and you, you&#8217;re learning it. You&#8217;re actually getting the hands on experience and giving them the ability to critically think about it. Now, they could use those to help them understand a little bit better, but at the end of the day, they still have to put their hands on it, work with it, which makes it physical so that they can still develop those skills.<\/p><p>00:26:26:14 &#8211; 00:26:45:07<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Fantastic. All right. And then, so this also gets to the future of the Helio-STELLA as well. So looking forward, what enhancements or new applications for Helio Stella are you most excited about developing in the next say you know very well in the near future, say 1 or 3 years, possibly.<\/p><p>00:26:46:07 &#8211; 00:27:24:06<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Right. So I&#8217;m most interested in actually making, like, the data in real time on, like, a cell phone, so we could actually transmit it. So adding a Wi-Fi adapter, making it transmittable to devices in real time, because one of the the things that is, kind of missing right now is if you have a classroom with 30 students and you only have one of these devices, you know, sure, each one of them can get their turn to use these devices, but would be more interesting for them to be able to watch what&#8217;s happening in real time.<\/p><p>00:27:24:07 &#8211; 00:27:49:12<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Not necessarily just, you know, looking at the screen or pulling the SD card out, and then uploading the data. But if they could see it in real time. So my thought process was, well, let&#8217;s install a Wi-Fi adapter, and then we can just transmit the data, to a web page or an app on a phone, so that we could communicate, this and see things in real time, generate graphs in real time, right?<\/p><p>00:27:49:12 &#8211; 00:28:14:15<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Instead of having to take the Excel spreadsheet and plot the graph, we could just do it in real time and then maybe even some machine learning, you know, some on this data. You know, there&#8217;s some things that we can do with it. But hardware wise, you know, it&#8217;s just how much can we cram into this in, you know, make it awesome for kids to use and easy for teachers to use.<\/p><p>00:28:15:01 &#8211; 00:28:42:07<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And yeah, my dream is, similar but actually simpler than Fred&#8217;s. I, I remember when we didn&#8217;t have webcams and now on the 6:00 news or the 10:00 news especially, not only is there a UV index where they give it during the weather forecast, but they often if we have a stormy weather show, the webcam from the our football stadium and from several other universities in the Dallas-Fort worth metroplex.<\/p><p>00:28:42:08 &#8211; 00:29:16:05<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Why? What if we had, Fred&#8217;s kind of system and it fed into the 6:00 or the 10:00 news and they would switch over to the STELLA readings and, especially during time when some of your colleagues from NASA would, would say in advance that, hey, we&#8217;re predicting a solar storm. And, and so I think that the whole public kind of awareness of, of all of this is, prime the technology is here now, thanks to all of you guys, to make this something that the whole public could be aware of.<\/p><p>00:29:16:05 &#8211; 00:29:21:03<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And so maybe we would actually have first graders that go, oh, I want to come here because you have STELLA.<\/p><p>00:29:24:09 &#8211; 00:29:39:00<br \/>Unknown<br \/>having crazy ideas that are not practical at all while valuing teammates who make those ideas workable. Could you share an example of how this dynamic led to important innovation in the HHelio-STELLA project or STELLA projects?<\/p><p>00:29:41:05 &#8211; 00:30:10:12<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Yeah. It&#8217;s, I gotta think about that one. Great. Yeah. But, from my personal experience, I think it&#8217;s that I it is going to sound crazy, but, you know, when I first started looking into adding more sensors to it, I, I started going through the actual all the sensors you could get. Right? So you actually go through and you start looking at all these sensors, and this really starts populating ideas in your head like, oh, I can put this in here.<\/p><p>00:30:10:12 &#8211; 00:30:31:14<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Oh, I can add this. Oh, there&#8217;s like gesturing sensors where you can gesture. And maybe we could switch the button out to be like a gesture, like, you know, just because everybody&#8217;s used to that type of interface now. Right. And so I think that&#8217;s the biggest thing is it&#8217;s just the creativity that it allows you to have. Right.<\/p><p>00:30:31:15 &#8211; 00:30:48:13<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And you want to pass that on to everybody on the team. Right. So you get with somebody like, hey, we could do this. We have to figure this out. We have to figure that out. And then there&#8217;s a lot of potential for it. Right. So you want to pass that on to teachers, and you also want to pass it on to kids because that gets them interesting.<\/p><p>00:30:48:13 &#8211; 00:31:08:03<br \/>Unknown<br \/>Right. As we&#8217;ve been talking. Right, as you said, nerding out about this, that&#8217;s what makes it enjoyable. And if you enjoy something, you&#8217;re going to want to spend more time. Do it and you&#8217;re going to learn more about it. And doing that kind of stuff helps kids learn better, in my opinion. And so I think that&#8217;s probably that.<\/p><p>00:31:08:04 &#8211; 00:31:28:12<br \/>Unknown<br \/>The biggest thing about it is just having that open source kind of concept where you could say, oh, we could do this and think outside the box and, and change it in and do it, and that makes it better in my opinion. No. Yeah. And maybe, I&#8217;d like to go back to ancient history just for a minute.<\/p><p>00:31:28:13 &#8211; 00:31:58:02<br \/>Unknown<br \/>And 1977, I was a new graduate student at the University of Hawaii and, I, found out that they had the system called PEACESAT, Pan Pacific Education and Communications Experiments by Satellite. It was at year one based to begin with, after it finished its mission. And by the way, my first trip to Goddard ever was to see the replica of the ATS-1 that they still had there.<\/p><p>00:31:58:05 &#8211; 00:32:31:01<br \/>This was in the early 80s at the time, Application Technology Satellite 1 It was the first one to send faxes. It was, high frequency. I&#8217;m an amateur radio operator. So for me, this was second nature, sort of, I think, 149MHz up and 135 down, if I remember correctly. So it was a push to talk, however, microcomputers that just come out the Apple two, I remember we had a but a half dozen or so that came in 1978 and they couldn&#8217;t talk over ATS-1.<\/p><p>00:32:31:02 &#8211; 00:33:01:13<br \/>The, the station&#8217;s the headquarters were Honolulu and New Zealand, Wellington, New Zealand for ATS-1. And at the time it was only the only way during certain times of the year of the people at the South Pole could communicate because the, the, the currently available satellite network wasn&#8217;t that, prominent. They were mostly geostationary orbit around the equator or, more or less.<\/p><p>00:33:01:13 &#8211; 00:33:40:03<br \/>And so depending on the tilt, couldn&#8217;t reach the South Pole. And, but what we used to talk about dream about especially a colleague who was in, Fiji and one in American Samoa. So, they were saying, well, can&#8217;t we get these apple tubes to send stuff over ATS-1? And, so someone figured out if we shorted out the CR1 diode and, and the and the 300 baud modem, that it would trick the computer, and actually, you could send even without the return circuit that was required.<\/p><p>00:33:40:04 &#8211; 00:34:00:05<br \/>And, and the standards for modem communications, that&#8217;s kind of what I used to teach the network operating systems. So you have to send and then also have a receipt and verify the data in our current protocols. But you can&#8217;t do that in a push-to-talk one way at a time. CB radio kind of satellite.<\/p><p>00:34:00:06 &#8211; 00:34:30:05<br \/>So we had fun for more than fun, actually. We started sending lots of, interesting and valuable data. And eventually when I first came to Unty, we found out by the end it was, 83. That was parked over Easter Island, as I recall it, and it would reach Texas. So we actually built a, satellite relay on our roof and our education building and, for 2 or 3 years talked on that.<\/p><p>00:34:30:05 &#8211; 00:34:54:15<br \/>And many school districts, actually, in our area, especially rural ones, they actually, installed their own dishes just so they could talk to people, like in Hawaii and New Zealand and, and, and so when I first saw STELLA I had sort of flashbacks back to it&#8217;s one like, wow, this is satellite technology I never dreamed about.<\/p><p>00:34:55:00 &#8211; 00:35:06:07<br \/>Now it&#8217;s in my hand. And so, well, that&#8217;s just the beginning of the story, but maybe it gives you the idea. I think the the potential is just unlimited.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Gerald Knezek and  Dr. Fred McMahan share their experiences developing and implementing Helio-STELLA, a low-cost solar monitoring device designed for educational settings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3285,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,39,20,33,7,41,83,87],"tags":[61,71,66,62],"class_list":["post-3249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-applications","category-education","category-helio","category-helio-stella","category-instruments","category-news","category-spectral","category-video","tag-education","tag-heliophysics","tag-nasa","tag-stem"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.4 - 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