I want to share with you a way that
everyone in this room can contribute to
our understanding of our world and our
universe in a meaningful way I first
want to do that by considering this
scenario it’s getting dark the
temperature is dropping the animals are
behaving strangely an eerie silence
settles in then screaming it’s not a bad
horror movie is it it’s what totality
wasn’t it amazing how great was that a
fantastic experience it was truly an
awe-inspiring event
pitchers just do not do it justice if
you try to explain it to somebody did
you try that they’re like oh you know I
haven’t seen one but it is truly
awe-inspiring for me for those few
minutes of totality I felt connected to
our universe as I gazed up and saw that
silvery crown where the Sun should be
that looked around I saw the sky
behaving in a surreal way with just an
incredible moment for me and considering
that the moon’s shadow traveled from
coast to coast at nearly 2,000 miles per
hour those two minutes and 17 seconds
were an opportunity to really experience
a truly rare event and for those in
Rexburg it’s not going to happen for
another 235 years now you may be
wondering what totality has to do with
you contributing to our understanding of
our world and our universe it’s through
an idea called citizen science what a
citizen science
it’s basically an amateur scientist a
citizen that works with a professional
scientist honest and infinite project
history actually has many such examples
of citizen scientists one of my
favorites is Benjamin Franklin with no
formal education laid down the
foundation of our understanding of
electricity but the idea faded with time
because of the advent of higher
education strange enough because
suddenly had to go to college to become
a scientist but the idea of research is
coming back into the hands
the everyday citizen through two things
the personal computer and the internet
now anyone from middle school up to
retirees could get involved in
meaningful projects for example you can
help scientists understand butterfly
migration through the butterfly count
project or it can help understand maybe
the fluctuations in the populations of
birds through the bird count project
sponsored by the Audubon Society
you can even help an understanding our
universe a little bit better by the
identification of galaxies in the Galaxy
Zoo project one of my favorite sites is
called Zooniverse where you can get
involved in such diverse projects and
areas of history medicine art literature
but why should you do it well for me it
is an opportunity to be part of
something bigger than myself and these
projects cannot be done without
contributions by you the citizen
scientist in fact is through citizen
science that we at Brigham Young
University Idaho a teaching institution
we’re able to get involved in several
projects and I just want to talk about
three of them today the first one is a
citizen Cade experiment this was led by
dr. Matthew Penn of the National Solar
Observatory who wanted to study the
inner solar corona now if you look
within that little yellow circle you’ll
see some of the delicate magnetic field
lines that constitute that structure of
the solar corona the problem is you can
only see it during totality but the
problem was at any one site he would
only get a couple of minutes of data
right that’s as long as totality lasts
so we asked for 60 volunteer sites
across the nation to help him do this we
gladly volunteered and took some really
good images of totality he is now in the
process of stitching all those images
from all those sites together to form a
90 minute movie of the Sun so although
all the although not yet finished he
sent me a short clip of what he’s
working on
you see those magnetic field lines and
if you notice closely you’ll see some
things happening no some plans by
traveling along some
magnetic field lines there and over here
you’ll know some gentle twisting or the
magnetic field lines in the solar wind
all this helps us understand our Sun a
little bit better the next product I
want to talk about is called soundscapes
it was actually developed by dr. Trey
winner of the harvard-smithsonian Center
for Astrophysics he wanted to take audio
recordings of of environmental sounds at
various locations across our nation so
we jumped on this project to put
microphones all over the place including
Porter Park here in Rexburg Idaho and at
the interest of a beehive now the bee
hive showed some very interesting
behavior because as totality near near
the beads got a little confused they
thought his bees becoming night and so
they all came into hive and so let’s go
ahead and listen in to that as totality
nears you’ll know as he gets really
quiet cuz most of our invite the up y2
got
totality is really close you can tell
because there’ll be some other activity
coming up here pretty soon you’ll notice
[Music]
so not only do the bees behave a little
strangely at Daiso did some humans okay
it was a lot of fun but anyway of course
after totality that bees then left the
hive it must have been a very confusing
day for them another project we got in
baldon was a nasa inspired idea to film
the shadow of the Eclipse come across
our nation from the advantage point of
high altitude balloons now we don’t know
anything about high-altitude balloons at
Brigham Young University Idaho but
that’s ok we rounded up a couple dozen
volunteers who have no experience of
launching balloons and we launched in
collaboration with Weber State
University a couple of balloons into the
stratosphere
carrying several cameras and scientific
equipment and I want to show you the
video from one of those cameras whoops
there we go
so you notice right over here the shadow
of the Eclipse that’s going to be headed
right here towards Rexburg
[Music]
the audio you hear is actually that
microphone placed in for the part
[Applause]
do you remember that excitement of
totality now it was amazing I don’t know
about you but I felt connected to even
the people around me I didn’t even know
it’s like without any choreography or
anything like that we all started just
yelling at the same time and it was
amazing in fact being involved in these
projects was just an amazing opportunity
for those people because it really made
totality more meaningful now for those
who missed totality you will have
another chance in 2024 in 2024 as it
passes from Texas through Maine and for
those who don’t have as much patience
but you have a lot of money you can
travel down to Argentina where there’s
going to be a couple of them before the
one in the United States but in either
case what I want you to do is get
involved in some people powered research
to be part of something bigger than
yourself in projects that scientists
just can’t do without help from you the
citizen scientist see you at the next
Eclipse
[Applause]
everyone in this room can contribute to
our understanding of our world and our
universe in a meaningful way I first
want to do that by considering this
scenario it’s getting dark the
temperature is dropping the animals are
behaving strangely an eerie silence
settles in then screaming it’s not a bad
horror movie is it it’s what totality
wasn’t it amazing how great was that a
fantastic experience it was truly an
awe-inspiring event
pitchers just do not do it justice if
you try to explain it to somebody did
you try that they’re like oh you know I
haven’t seen one but it is truly
awe-inspiring for me for those few
minutes of totality I felt connected to
our universe as I gazed up and saw that
silvery crown where the Sun should be
that looked around I saw the sky
behaving in a surreal way with just an
incredible moment for me and considering
that the moon’s shadow traveled from
coast to coast at nearly 2,000 miles per
hour those two minutes and 17 seconds
were an opportunity to really experience
a truly rare event and for those in
Rexburg it’s not going to happen for
another 235 years now you may be
wondering what totality has to do with
you contributing to our understanding of
our world and our universe it’s through
an idea called citizen science what a
citizen science
it’s basically an amateur scientist a
citizen that works with a professional
scientist honest and infinite project
history actually has many such examples
of citizen scientists one of my
favorites is Benjamin Franklin with no
formal education laid down the
foundation of our understanding of
electricity but the idea faded with time
because of the advent of higher
education strange enough because
suddenly had to go to college to become
a scientist but the idea of research is
coming back into the hands
the everyday citizen through two things
the personal computer and the internet
now anyone from middle school up to
retirees could get involved in
meaningful projects for example you can
help scientists understand butterfly
migration through the butterfly count
project or it can help understand maybe
the fluctuations in the populations of
birds through the bird count project
sponsored by the Audubon Society
you can even help an understanding our
universe a little bit better by the
identification of galaxies in the Galaxy
Zoo project one of my favorite sites is
called Zooniverse where you can get
involved in such diverse projects and
areas of history medicine art literature
but why should you do it well for me it
is an opportunity to be part of
something bigger than myself and these
projects cannot be done without
contributions by you the citizen
scientist in fact is through citizen
science that we at Brigham Young
University Idaho a teaching institution
we’re able to get involved in several
projects and I just want to talk about
three of them today the first one is a
citizen Cade experiment this was led by
dr. Matthew Penn of the National Solar
Observatory who wanted to study the
inner solar corona now if you look
within that little yellow circle you’ll
see some of the delicate magnetic field
lines that constitute that structure of
the solar corona the problem is you can
only see it during totality but the
problem was at any one site he would
only get a couple of minutes of data
right that’s as long as totality lasts
so we asked for 60 volunteer sites
across the nation to help him do this we
gladly volunteered and took some really
good images of totality he is now in the
process of stitching all those images
from all those sites together to form a
90 minute movie of the Sun so although
all the although not yet finished he
sent me a short clip of what he’s
working on
you see those magnetic field lines and
if you notice closely you’ll see some
things happening no some plans by
traveling along some
magnetic field lines there and over here
you’ll know some gentle twisting or the
magnetic field lines in the solar wind
all this helps us understand our Sun a
little bit better the next product I
want to talk about is called soundscapes
it was actually developed by dr. Trey
winner of the harvard-smithsonian Center
for Astrophysics he wanted to take audio
recordings of of environmental sounds at
various locations across our nation so
we jumped on this project to put
microphones all over the place including
Porter Park here in Rexburg Idaho and at
the interest of a beehive now the bee
hive showed some very interesting
behavior because as totality near near
the beads got a little confused they
thought his bees becoming night and so
they all came into hive and so let’s go
ahead and listen in to that as totality
nears you’ll know as he gets really
quiet cuz most of our invite the up y2
got
totality is really close you can tell
because there’ll be some other activity
coming up here pretty soon you’ll notice
[Music]
so not only do the bees behave a little
strangely at Daiso did some humans okay
it was a lot of fun but anyway of course
after totality that bees then left the
hive it must have been a very confusing
day for them another project we got in
baldon was a nasa inspired idea to film
the shadow of the Eclipse come across
our nation from the advantage point of
high altitude balloons now we don’t know
anything about high-altitude balloons at
Brigham Young University Idaho but
that’s ok we rounded up a couple dozen
volunteers who have no experience of
launching balloons and we launched in
collaboration with Weber State
University a couple of balloons into the
stratosphere
carrying several cameras and scientific
equipment and I want to show you the
video from one of those cameras whoops
there we go
so you notice right over here the shadow
of the Eclipse that’s going to be headed
right here towards Rexburg
[Music]
the audio you hear is actually that
microphone placed in for the part
[Applause]
do you remember that excitement of
totality now it was amazing I don’t know
about you but I felt connected to even
the people around me I didn’t even know
it’s like without any choreography or
anything like that we all started just
yelling at the same time and it was
amazing in fact being involved in these
projects was just an amazing opportunity
for those people because it really made
totality more meaningful now for those
who missed totality you will have
another chance in 2024 in 2024 as it
passes from Texas through Maine and for
those who don’t have as much patience
but you have a lot of money you can
travel down to Argentina where there’s
going to be a couple of them before the
one in the United States but in either
case what I want you to do is get
involved in some people powered research
to be part of something bigger than
yourself in projects that scientists
just can’t do without help from you the
citizen scientist see you at the next
Eclipse
[Applause]
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