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June 26, 2002
STUDENTS JOIN SCIENTISTS IN SEARCH OF ASTHMA TRIGGERS
Students and teachers of more than 20
Baltimore, Md. middle and high schools
will be helping NASA scientists, and
doctors and researchers from the
University of Maryland School of
Medicine to better understand the
causes of pediatric asthma in Baltimore
City. The students will be gathering data
on aerosol particles that will help
experts track particulates in relation to
incidence of asthma.
"Asthma is one of the most common
chronic illnesses that cause children to
miss school, and Baltimore City school
children suffer from some of the highest
asthma rates in the country," says Carol
Blaisdell, M.D., Chief of Pediatric
Pulmonology and Allergy at the
University of Maryland Hospital for
Children and Associate Professor of
Pediatrics at the University of Maryland
School of Medicine.
Severe asthma events leading to hospitalization occur at much higher rates for
children under the age of 18 in the fall more than during the rest of the year.
Scientists believe this may, in part, be triggered by tiny airborne particles called
aerosols.
The student's portion of the research is
called the Baltimore Student Sun
photometer Network (BSSN). Each
student participating in BSSN will go
outside of their school daily and point a
hand held instrument, known as a "Sun
Photometer," toward the Sun. These
devices can determine the
concentration and size of aerosols (or
particles in the air) by using light from
the electromagnetic spectrum. Smaller
particles appear in the blue end of the
spectrum, while the larger particles are seen in the red end of the spectrum. The
students will take daily measurements of aerosols around Baltimore City beginning
this spring and will continue to collect data over the course of this calendar year.
"The data will be included as part of a
larger study to identify the
environmental triggers of pediatric
asthma in Baltimore," said Elissa
Levine, the lead scientist on the project,
who works in the Biospheric Sciences
Branch at NASA's Goddard Space
Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "This
co-operative effort is not only beneficial
to our research, but will also benefit the
students. It will enhance their science,
math, and technology skills and improve
their understanding of their local
environment."
"We are excited about participating
because collection of authentic data is
an important part of modern science
instruction," said Dr. Andrea Bowden,
Supervisor of Science and Health
Education for the Baltimore City Public
School System.
The BSSN will be the first city-wide network ever established to monitor small-scale
changes in the quantity of aerosol particles in a layer of atmosphere over a
metropolitan area. The network will be scientifically and geographically supported
by a full-scale Sun Photometer located on the roof of the Maryland Science
Center in Baltimore that is part of NASA's AERONET (AEosol RObotic NETwork)
program.
Just like the full-scale Sun Photometer, the hand held "student" instruments will
provide information about the quantity and particle size of aerosols in the air using
bands from the electromagnetic spectrum. The student readings will provide a first
time look at how aerosols are spread out across the city, and be compared with
the Sun Photometer readings at the Maryland Science Center location.
Brent Holben, an atmospheric scientist at NASA Goddard, leads the AERONET
program, a series of ground-based remote sensing Sun photometers that
measure aerosols globally. NASA and various federal agencies, universities and
institutes around the world have established these ground-stations.
Holben said, "In addition to helping to collect data for the asthma project, the
aerosol data that the students collect using hand-held devices will be used to
verify the accuracy of data NASA collects from instruments aboard NASA's Terra
satellite."
Terra looks at aerosols from space down to Earth, while this project looks at them
from the Earth up toward space. The student network acts as a double-check for
the aerosol data gathered by the satellite and the full-scale photometer, and the
first time this check will be made across a local area. The hand-held Sun
photometers are on loan from the USDA Forest Service, who uses them to
measure air quality after forest fires.
This study is funded through NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. The aerosol
data that is being used to identify environmental asthma triggers is funded under
NASA's "Healthy Planet: Earth Science and Public Health" program.
For more information, please check the following web sites:
###
Contacts:
Cynthia
M. O'Carroll
Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Phone: 805/605-3051
Ellen Beth Levitt
University of Maryland School of Medicine
(Phone: 410-328-8919)
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Students Checking for Air Pollution
NASA scientists teach students at the Robert
Poole Middle School in Baltimore, Maryland to
use the Sun photometers properly and collect
aerosol data as part of the Baltimore Student
Sun photometer Network (BSSN). Credit: Mike
McClare, NASA-TV
Animation [836 K MPEG]
The Sun Photometer at the Maryland Science Center
Pictured here is a robust, automatic Sun
Photometer located on the roof of the
Maryland Science Center in Baltimore.
Baltimore's Inner Harbor and World Trade
Center are in the background.
The Sun Photometer is directed at the Sun to
measure light that reaches the Earth's
surface. Light from selected wavelengths
(1020, 870, 670, 500, 440, 380, 340
nanometers) in the electromagnetic spectrum
are received by the instrument. The amount of
energy reaching the Earth's surface is
recorded by the instrument and these data
are transmitted to NASA Goddard Space
Flight Center via satellite. NASA computers
use the Sun Photometer wavelength data to
calculate the concentration and size of
aerosols (or particles) in the atmosphere.
Readings obtained by Baltimore city school
students from hand-held Sun Photometers will
provide a first time look at how aerosols are
spread out across the city, and will be
compared with the Sun Photometer readings
at the Maryland Science Center location.
The Maryland Science Center's Sun
Photometer is part of NASA's AERONET
(AErosol RObotic NETwork) program.
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