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It all started December 1994, at a convention where space plasma researchers met the NASA HQ fellow in charge of their funding. "You people" he told us, "you are too involved in your own stuff. Reach out to members of the general public and let them know what you are doing!"
Having some experience with small educational projects, that same month I started a collaboration with Dr. Mauricio Peredo on a free web-based educational overview "Exploration of the Earth's Magnetosphere" This became the first of four extensive free web expositions--the others "From Stargazers to Starships" ('98), "The Great Magnet, the Earth" ('00) and "All Things Electric and Magnetic" ('10), all of them (together with auxiliary files) reached from the central linking site http://www.phy6.org/readfirst.htm. In July 1975, at a conference in Boulder CO, an early version of "Exploration" was presented to the science community, and with the help of Dr. Peredo it was soon posted on the internet. The aim has always been to educate the public. As pointed out in "Using Space to Teach Physics" [The Physics Teacher, 37, p. 102-3, Feb 1999], a space connection helps motivate the study of science, and although space research is recent, much of its physics--mechanics, orbits, magnetic fields--can be presented at the level of classical high school physics. It was a plain, homespun educational tool: simple HTML was used, composed in text format on a basement Macintosh. Back in the days of phone-line modems, fast loading was important, also early file names had to be restricted to 8 letters to accommodate some systems. "From Stargazers to Starships"Teaching poses the challenge of how to make astronomy more than mere memorization of written material. Selected calculations based on ancient and recent discoveries were therefore included--but at the cost of greater length. From the start these collections were meant to be self-contained. History provided a unifying framework, and stories of discoveries and discoverers added life to the narrative. I felt particularly proud of the detailed timeline, in which dates relevant to science were given in red (linked to sites in "Stargazers") and those of related to world history in black. Whenever a student in a history class discovers that site, another bridge to the humanities may be built. Another such bridge is provided by snippets of poetry (e.g "Frogs") scattered here and there. Volunteers have translated "Stargazers" into Spanish, French and Italian, a task helped by its simple coding: one just replaces each paragraph, headline and caption with its translation, keeping the format and images intact. It also added a "Math Refresher" course, plus a set of 46 lesson plans, a glossary, problems, and sites to help teachers (home schoolers have also found these useful). Almost inevitably, e-mail messages from users started arriving. Some expressed appreciation, but most came with questions, which were answered as promptly as possible. The more interesting (or entertaining) Q&As were posted on the web, and they afford an insight into the thinking of students, teachers and the general public and into their understanding of science. "Stargazers" currently lists 503 answered questions, "Exploration" 145, "The Great Magnet" 127. "All Things" has none--indeed, it seems to get very little use (we'll return to that later). Branching OutIn 2009 one more collection was added, "All Things Electric and Magnetic," presenting electricity at the level of a continuous fluid. This seemed appropriate for students in public schools, where education in this direction often ends with either Ohm's Law or the end of the school year, whichever comes first. A continuation into aspects involving electrons and their applications may follow later (or someone else will provide them), but even so, this elementary overview tries to cover topics such as the "Enigma" code machine and Maxwell's equations on a pre-calculus level. All these are self-contained courses, too extensive for any high school but perhaps just right for a self-motivated learner. Many sections are really optional--e.g. a personal account of aurora above Chicago, a folding paper model of the magnetosphere (also of the interplanetary magnetic field and of a sundial), ancient estimates of the distance of the Moon (two ways!), calculating a flight path to Mars, a course on nuclear energy, the black hole at the center of our galaxy, cannons that reach the edge of space (also here), the discovery of the unique distinction of Mt. Everest, an approximate derivation of logarithms (a better one here), origin of lodestones, a magnetic study of tobacco smoking, the accidental discovery of Jupiter's radio waves, the earliest glimmers of electromagnetic waves , the history of telegraphy... go on, get lost, but when you come back, write us about it! To complete the picture, there is also a personal collection "Welcome to My World", presenting poems, book reviews (currently 61), sermons and yes, a bit of more science. If you build it, will they come?Links from other sites, of course, often give the credit to NASA. Initially the files were placed (thanks to Dr. Peredo) on a server of the National Space Science Data Center, associated with ISTP (International Solar Terrestial Physics project), and they can still be found there, under addresses such as www.pwg.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/Intro.html . However that was an informal arrangement, and after one NASA educator told me "of course, we have no obligation to provide support for your sites," I bought the address www.phy6.org and used it on the server of a friend of our son. That remains the main address. Other servers which carry the files are essentially mirror sites, e.g. the Russian Institute of Space Research (IKI). A Japanese translation of "The Great Magnet" resides on the computer of Prof. Iyemori's group at the University of Kyoto; I also suggested translating "Exploration" into Japanese, but was told "it is better for students to use the English version, it helps them learn the language." An abbreviated version of "Stargazers" is also part of the CK-12 educational library, and "Exploration" is featured on an educational disk produced over many years by Pat Reiff of Rice U. Trapped on a Sticky WebAt first this worked quite well, but in recent years, usage has dropped--as mentioned, "All Things Electric and Magnetic" has received very little attention. (search "All Things Electric" or "elementary course on electricity" and see what comes up). At a certain point those engines dropped most links to www.phy6.org and instead gave preference to www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov and its clones. This became clear only very recently, and those mirrors were quickly updated. However, even on those servers coverage is extremely spotty (try the topics listed earlier!), perhaps for two reasons. One is that paid listing displaces the free kind, even for non-commercial material that is provided at no cost for the public's benefit. And two, as web use has broadened, with scant quality control by search engines, the signal-to-noise ratio has dropped tremendously. Wikipedia (to which I contributed items on the aurora and the magnetosphere) is an exception; it does try to control quality, with fair success (and so does DMOZ). However, its links only provide spot information (as does "Hyperphysics", another excellent web resource) and are a poor guide for viewing the overall pattern of science. The future of all these projects is cloudy. It remains a one-person effort, and having turned 80, I don't know how much longer it can be maintained. Already most translation projects have been abandoned, the start of a slow retreat. One still hopes to find a successor to maintain and expand these units, and a guide to the tasks required is posted on the web. One may envision, for instance, a pool of women with good scientific training who need to stay home to raise their families, or retired physicists. But so far, no takers. |