As solar eclipse spectators are gathering in the path of totality, teams of students from Maryland and around the nation are preparing to launch instruments to study the phenomenon.
This afternoon, dozens of teams participating in the NASA supported Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project will launch high altitude weather balloons hauling instruments into the sky to study the eclipse's effect on the atmosphere. A team from the University of Maryland will launch two balloons from a location near Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Mary Bowden, senior lecturer of aerospace engineering at the University of Maryland, said there are numerous engineering lessons.
"All of the learning about how to design payloads that will work at altitude, and in the low temperature and low-pressure environment up there at altitude, and then putting them together and inflating a balloon and tracking a balloon and all that, there's a lot of engineering there," Bowden outlined. "That is really a wonderful educational experience."
The Maryland team is part of the University of Maryland Nearspace program, which has been conducting multiple balloon launches each semester for nearly 20 years. Even if skies are overcast, the balloons will fly well above the clouds, livestreaming video to YouTube.
Balloon teams have the opportunity to investigate several different scientific questions including how heat moves through the atmosphere. The Maryland team has been conducting practice launches in the months leading up to today's eclipse. Bowden pointed out in addition to monitoring forecasts of wind speed at higher altitudes, trying to study the eclipse has the team focused on timing.
"One of the trickiest parts of this is that we need to launch the balloon such that it is at altitude at totality," Bowden explained. "You have to figure out how much helium to put in the balloon to get a certain ascent rate to make sure it's going up just at the right speed, so that it is at altitude. And for us, we're shooting for about 70,000 to 80,000 feet."
The team tracks the payload during the flight and after with multiple technologies including using Iridium satellites, as well as ham radio frequencies. After the eclipse, the team will activate a remote device to cut the payload loose and allow it to parachute back to the ground. Balloon teams select the recovery location and choose open fields or farmland rather than forests or cities.
Bowden noted sometimes, recovery is the hardest part.
"We can usually locate exactly where they've landed, even to the point of walking up to somebody's house and saying, 'We just landed our payloads in your backyard. Would you allow us to go get them?'" Bowden recounted. "That is the last step of the flight. And sometimes the most stressful is basically recovering the payload."
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In 2020, the Cameron Peak Fire burned more than 200,000 acres, destroyed 469 structures and forced the evacuation of more than 6,000 residents in Colorado.
Since then, researchers have documented how the scars of wildfires influence adaptation, build resilience and offer insight into how communities can better prepare for and recover from natural disasters.
Pilar Morales-Giner, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Granada in Spain, said as wildfires scorch forests or communities, they also affect our connection to the places.
"In addition to this tragedy of losing a home, when a fire burns an emblematic community building, for example, or a trail or a forest that we usually go to, this also affects what connects people to places," Morales-Giner explained.
Colorado State University researchers interviewed 34 Larimer County residents, local leaders and environmental organizations to learn how the largest wildfire in Colorado history affected them. The results, "Ash Everywhere: Place Attachment and Meanings in the Aftermath of Wildfires," were recently published in Sage Journal.
Anne Mook, senior team scientist for the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences at Colorado State University, said wildfires are incredibly disruptive for people's lives and stressful to people's mental health. But she added people are also drawn closer together after natural disasters to rebuild homes, schools and churches, which strengthens social bonds and resilience.
"There's also this message of hope that these kinds of events can be a catalyst for growth and unity and building new and stronger connections with our environment," Mook observed.
Researchers also found communities affected by wildfire are more open to different mitigation strategies, including prescribed burns, which improve soil health and help trees grow faster.
"These things that initially were very much met with resistance now are much more embraced and people are learning," Mook noted. "These are practices that have been used for a very long time, for example, in the U.S. South, but also by the Native Americans."
This story is based on original reporting by Stacy Nick for The Audit.
Disclosure: Colorado State University contributes to our fund for reporting on Environment, Health Issues, Social Justice. If you would like to help support news in the public interest,
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A new State of the Commonwealth report by Old Dominion University finds Virginia had a strong year in 2024. But researchers say challenges remain.
The report finds housing will be a major issue in the state, as local governments work to address housing shortages and zoning laws.
Virginia had its fourth straight year of economic growth in 2024, ranking as the number one state to do business.
Bob McNab, professor of economics at Old Dominion University, said the overall outlook for Virginia in 2025 is positive. But he said a number of factors may impact that forecast.
"We saw inflation decelerate, real wages - that's wages after inflation - rise, jobs continue to increase," said McNab. "As Virginia enters 2025, it is in a good position to continue growth."
McNab did warn that international trade, immigration, and the status of the federal workforce could impact Virginia's economy.
Despite data that points to a strong economy, consumers aren't quick to agree.
The report finds consumers still feel less optimistic about the state of the economy than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Higher prices on goods and services because of inflation have driven that sentiment. McNab said people interact with prices daily - and their paycheck may be once or twice a month.
That, he said, leads to the data not coinciding with consumer feelings on the economy.
"And since 2019, real hourly earnings have increased after accounting for inflation," said McNab. "People's wages have outgained inflation. But they don't feel like that has occurred because they see prices much more frequently."
The report also finds Virginia's unemployment rate is nearing record lows.
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As the popular role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons turns 50, one Colorado State University instructor suggests today's political leaders could learn a lot by rolling the dice.
James Fielder, instructor and researcher of ludology (the study of games and gameplay) at Colorado State University, calls the game a master class in political strategy, covering everything from diplomacy to alliance forming to conflict resolution.
Fielder said players have to work together to achieve a goal. If you're at odds with each other, you don't achieve anything.
"The lesson is that we're learning to negotiate in order to overcome a challenge," Fielder explained. "That lesson sticks. You come out of the table, 'Oh, I learned how to negotiate with other people, and we overcame a challenge.' It worked."
A former Air Force lieutenant colonel, Fielder has more than two decades of experience designing war games and training exercises. He stressed role-playing is not just child's play. He compared the games to a ritual performance. When players are inside a game space -- which could be a football field, a card table, or a war room -- everything inside the game is very real, including wins, losses and lessons learned about the use of power.
Fielder added when a Dungeon Master reveals an unintended consequence of the players' decisions -- for example, the massacre of an entire town -- they frequently look at each other like, "What did we just do?"
"You will also find players who will play evil characters, who carry out atrocities in the game," Fielder observed. "But then when they come out, they don't feel good about themselves. They feel unclean, like, 'Oh my God, I can't believe I just did that.' And so, yes, that sends a very powerful message."
Fielder said even in today's modern age, games can be similar to an animist rite of passage, where participants believe a spiritual leader wearing an animal's skin is an actual god or animal.
"If you're wearing a suit to go to work, you're wearing the 'skin' of a businessperson," Fielder pointed out. "I was in the military for 25 years putting on the uniform, and wearing the 'skin' of a sergeant or a lieutenant colonel."
This story is based on original reporting by Stacy Nick for Colorado State University.
Disclosure: Colorado State University contributes to our fund for reporting on Environment, Health Issues, and Social Justice. If you would like to help support news in the public interest,
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