(Activity Report of the Participant No. 16: the METU in Ankara, Türkiye)*

FP6 SWEETS SSA

Space Weather and Europe -
an Educational Tool with the Sun

(31st of December, 2007)

*Yurdanur Tulunay;

ODTÜ / METU

Dept. of AerospaceEng.,

06531, Ankara

Activity Report

Contractor:Middle East Technical University

Prof. Dr. Canan Çilingir, Vice President

Participant Nu:16, WP3.2

Prof. Dr. Yurdanur Tulunay (YT)

Content

Sub-Activities Conducted Under the Action
1. / Space Weather Dance Show “Sonnensturm” / 3
2. / Web Quiz all over Europe: In Türkiye / 4
3. / Space Weather / Sun / Heliospheric Public Science Festivals in 27 Countries: In Türkiye / 5
4. / Space Weather on Tour-Mobile Bus / 7
5. / Rocket / balloon launch participation for European web quiz winner and journalists / 8
6. / Space Weather / Solar / Aurora / Rocket / Balloon movie production for TV / 8
7. / Space Weather / Sun /Heliospheric public science festival & public fair in Schwerin castle (main SWEETS festival during ESW 2007) / 8
8. / Space Weather telescope video link with Australian (Antarctic Mawson station) and Japanese locations for Schwerin castle festival (no. 7 deliverable) / 9
9. / Space Weather planetarium show in Poland, Finland, France and Portugal (4 new languages) / 9
10. / Updated Space Weather / Solar CD-Rom / DVD in 7 new languages, poster / flyer / 9
11. / Cosmic ray spark chambers / 9
12. / Space Weather storm forecast map / 10
13. / Mirror system for solar movie / 10
14. / FP6 SWEETS / IHY / COST 724 Case Sub-project: “I LOVE MY SUN” (An outreach Activity in Turkey: The Space Weather and the Sun as conceived by the School Children of age 7-11) / 11
15. / Press Releases / 14
16. / FP6 SWEETS Related Art / 15
17. / Turkish Translations in IHY and COST webpages / 16
18. / Impact of the SWEETS / 16

List of Appendices

Appendix 1 / Space Weather Dance Show “Sonnensturm”
Appendix 2 / Web Quiz all over Europe: In Türkiye
Appendix 3 / Space Weather / Sun / Heliospheric Public Science Festivals in 27 Countries: In Türkiye
Appendix 4 / Space Weather on Tour-Mobile Bus
Appendix 7 / Space Weather / Sun /Heliospheric public science festival & public fair in Schwerin castle (main SWEETS festival during ESW 2007)
Appendix 12 / Space Weather storm forecast map
Appendix 14 / FP6 SWEETS / IHY / COST 724 Case Sub-project: “I LOVE MY SUN” (An outreach Activity in Turkey: The Space Weather and the Sun as conceived by the School Children of age 7-11)
Appendix 15 / Press Releases
Appendix 16 / FP6 SWEETS Related Art
Appendix 17 / Turkish Translations in IHY and COST webpages
Appendix 18 / Impact of the SWEETS

Sub-Activities Conducted Under the Action:

Space Weather Dance Show “Sonnensturm”

Type and description of activity

Dr. Frank Jansen (FJ) did introduce the “Space Weather Dance Show Project” and the project proposal of the FP6 SWEETS Action during one of the MC Meetings of the FP6 COST 724 which took place in Antalya, Türkiye, on the occasion of the last solar eclipse of the millenium, 29 March 2006. Since then, Prof. Dr. Yurdanur Tulunay (YT) had been very active in promoting the idea of SWEETS related ballet of “Sonnensturm”. In this context, the concept and the idea, and the poster etc. of the Project have been transferred and disseminated.

Some typical ways of dissemination are presented in the Appendix 1.

Date of activity

The activity has started retrospectively with the proposal of the SWEETS to the EC in 2006 and has continued until 31st of December, 2007.

Type of audience and number of people attending

-Type of audience: Authorities at the Ministry; media members; students; children; artists and public.

-Number of people attending: It is hard to quantify the number of people who attended the activity.

Media Coverage (press, radio, TV, …)

N/A

World-wide Web Quiz on Space Weather and the International Heliophysical Year – Web Quiz all over Europe: In Türkiye

Type and description of activity

One of the common exercises being involved during the Action was the translation and competition of a World-wide Web Quiz on Space Weather and the International Heliophysical Year – Web Quiz all over Europe: In Türkiye.

The web announcement, the poster, the Web Quiz in Turkish, welcoming the quiz winner in Türkiye and the relevant e-mail communications are presented in Appendix 2.

Date of activity

As stated by the Project Director in Germany.

Type of audience and number of people attending

-Type of audience:▪ Web browsers:

▪ Notice boards at the Department

▪ 4th year Aerospace Engineering students sitting in the class of AE 453 – Introduction to Atmospheric Physics I (2007)

-Number of people attending: N/A

Media Coverage (press, radio, TV, …)

N/A

Space Weather / Sun / Heliospheric Public Science Festivals
in 27 Countries: Türkiye

Type and description of activity

There have been five activities to be reported in this section. That is:

3.i)The 7th METU Promotion Fair,

3.ii)CeBIT Eurasia, The International Information Fair in İstanbul, 2007

3.iii)METU Aerospace Student Society Activity,

3.iv)Open Day at the METU AEE Dept.,

3.v)Open Day for a School Project, BILSEM.

3.i)The 7th METU Promotion Fair

“The Promotion Fair”has been devoted to the high school graduates in Türkiye who are at the stage of deciding about their future career, after having fulfilled positively the requirements of an extremely competitive university entrance examination. In part of such activities, the candidate children are welcome to pay visits to the stands of the academic programs offered at the METU. In this particular event, a stand was allocated for YT, where the IHY, FP6 and in particular the FP6 SWEETS Activities were promoted widely.

All the relevant documents and the images are presented in Appendix 3.i.

3.ii)CeBIT Eurasia, The International Information Fair in İstanbul, Türkiye, 2007

The CeBIT Eurasia has been held regularly every year. This year, there was a special conference sponsored by the TÜRKSAT Company, dedicated to the World Space Week. YT had been invited to deliver a paper at this conference. The relevant documents and images are presented in Appendix 3-ii.

3.iii)World Space Week ODTÜ / METU Celebrations - METU Aerospace Student Society Activity, 9 October, 2007

The METU Aerospace Student Society held an activity on 9th October, 2007, at the METU Cultural and Conference Center (KKM). The TÜRKSAT Company, kindly supported the activity by providing a small planetarium which was open for half a day to the public. The relevant documents and the images are presented in Appendix 3-iii.

3.iv)Open Day at the METU Dept. of Aerospace Engineering

At the Department of Aerospace Engineering (AEE) there was an open day to promote the FP6 SWEETS Action on 24th of October, 2007. The relevant documents and images are presented in Appendix 3-iv.

3.v)An Open Day for a School Project, BİLSEM, on the Children with High IQ at the METU AEE Department

The BİLSEM is a project launched by the Ministry of Education. The objectives of the BİLSEM Project are:

to create an awareness on the abilities and creativities of the school children of age 7 to 14 as early as possible; and
to establish the conditions, environment and opportunities by providing facilities for the children to acquire some work discipline which is competible with their superior abilities.

In the workshops organised under the Project, the children are expected to realise activities towards fullfilling the target aims within their capabilities and abilities. In particular, such workshops are organised and conducted as interdisciplinary tasks.

The academic advisor to the BİLSEM heard YT’s presentation at the CeBIT Fair in İstanbul and invited YT to have a special promoting program on the Space Weather and the FP6 SWEETS Action for their students of age 7 to 14. A half a day program was arranged by YT for the BİLSEM Project at the METU AEE on 30th of November, 2007. All the relevant documents and images are presented at the Appendix 3-v.

Date of activity
The 7th METU Promotion Fair: 26 – 27 – 28 July 2007
CeBIT: 6 October 2007
METU Aerospace Student Society: 9 October 2007
Open Day at the METU AEE Dept.: 24 October 2007
Open Day for a School Project, BILSEM: 30 November 2007

Type of audience and number of people attending

-Type of audience

The 7th METU Promotion Fair: academic staff; university students; students who are at the stage of deciding about their future career; public
CeBIT: public; politicians including some members of the Parliament; some chief executive officers; SME representatives
METU Aerospace Student Soc. Activity: academic staff; students; public; school
Open Day at the METU AEE Dept.: academic staff; students and the visitors who happened to be in the vicinity
Open Day for a School Project, BILSEM: students of age group 7 – 14, and their school teachers.

-Number of people attending

The 7th METU Promotion Fair: 15000 – 20000
CeBIT: N/A
METU Aerospace Student Soc. Activity: 200-500
Open Day at the METU AEE Dept.: 50-60
Open Day for a School Project, BILSEM: 30

Media Coverage (press, radio, TV, …)

The 7th METU Promotion Fair: Media
CeBIT: Media
METU Aerospace Student Soc. Activity: Media
Open Day at the METU AEE Dept.:N/A
Open Day for a School Project, BILSEM: N/A

Space Weather on Tour-Mobile Bus

Type and description of activity

The Sub-project of “Tour-Mobile Bus” had not been planned to include a trip to Türkiye. However, the Turkish Project contributed to the poster, etc. type components.

All the relevant documents are presented in Appendix 4.

Date of activity

Throughout the Project when we were invited to contribute.

Type of audience and number of people attending

-Type of audience:

N/A

-Number of people attending:

N/A

Media Coverage (press, radio, TV, …)

N/A

Rocket / balloon launch participation for European web quiz winner and journalists

N/A

Space Weather / Solar / Aurora / Rocket / Balloon movie production for TV

N/A

Space Weather / Sun /Heliospheric public science festival & public fair in Schwerin castle (main SWEETS festival during ESW 2007)

Type and description of activity

This first European Space Weather & Earth Environment Technology Fair is funded by the European Commission as part of the SWEETS project.

The goal of this fair is to bring together experts from industry, scientific institutes, and the public in order to enhance the awareness of space weather effects and to discuss appropriate countermeasures.

The fair took place during the European Science Week. It was opened by an attractive public space weather forum for politicians, representatives from industry, institutions and media in Schwerin.

().

The Turkish group was represented by Prof. Dr. Ersin Tulunay (ET) and the graduate student Ms. Burcu Akın. There was a presentation made by Dr. Tulunay during the “FP6 SWEETS Event”.

All the relevant documents and the images are presented in Appendix 7.

Date of activity

19th of November, 2007;Schwerin

20th and 21st November, 2007;Greifswald

Type of audience and number of people attending

-Type of audience:

N/A

-Number of people attending:

N/A

Media Coverage (press, radio, TV, …)

N/A

Space Weather telescope video link with Australian (Antarctic Mawson station) and Japanese locations for Schwerin castle festival (no. 7 deliverable)

N/A

Space Weather planetarium show in Poland, Finland, France and Portugal (4 new languages)

N/A

Updated Space Weather / Solar CD-Rom / DVD in 7 new languages, poster / flyer

N/A (The Turkish characters were not included in the late preperation phase of the DVD.)

Cosmic ray spark chambers

N/A

Space Weather storm forecast map

Type and description of activity

Dr. Y. Tulunay and her group have been working on data driven models since 1990 when she joined the EU COST 238 Action: Prediction Regional Ionospheric Modelling over Europe. Since then, she has participated in the follow-up Actions of:

-“COST 251: Improved Quality of Service in Ionospheric Telecommunication System Planning and Operation”

-“COST271: Effects of the Upper Atmosphere on Terrestrial and Earth-Space Communications”

-“COST 296: Mitigation of Ionospheric Effects on Radio Systems”

-“COST 724: Developing the Scientific Basis for Monitoring, Modelling and Predicting Space Weather”

The skills and know-how developed by her and her group have included all the relevant activities such as International Heliophysical Year (IHY) and the FP6 SWEETS SSA.

In Appendix 12, a list of relevant references, some typical storm forecast map in the TEC date values and the text of one of the most recent papers are given.

Date of activity

1st of Jan. 2006 – 1st of Jan 2007

Type of audience and number of people attending

-Type of audience:

Please refer to the reported sub-activities being involved in the SWEETS Action.

-Number of people attending:

Please refer to the reported sub-activities being involved in the SWEETS Action.

Media Coverage (press, radio, TV, …)

Please refer to the reported sub-activities being involved in the SWEETS Action.

Mirror system for solar movie

N/A

FP6 SWEETS / IHY / COST 724 Case Sub-project: “I LOVE MY SUN” (An outreach Activity in Turkey: The Space Weather and the Sun as conceived by the School Children of age 7-11)

Type and description of activity

The description of the “I LOVE MY SUN” Project is quoted below, and all the relevant documents and images are presented in Appendix 14:

FP6 SWEETS / IHY / COST 724 Case Sub-project: “I LOVE MY SUN” (An outreach Activity in Turkey: The Space Weather and the Sun as conceived by the School Children of age 7-11)

Description of Action

Space weather refers to conditions on the sun and in the solar wind, magnetosphere, ionosphere, and thermosphere that can influence the performance and reliability of space-borne and ground-based technological systems and can endanger human life or health. Solar and geomagnetic events can impact many different sectors that affect our daily lives -- navigation, satellites, communications, pipelines, electric power systems, and human health in space and flight.

Fifty years ago, on 4 of 1957, the first manned, artificial satellite, Sputnik, carrying onboard the Astronaut Gagarin, was launched into a low Earth orbit. In practice, this event marked the beginning of the Space Age. 1957 was attributed as the beginning of the International Geophysical Year (IGY). Since then more than 60000 scientists, engineers from 67 nations accomplished collaborative Near Earth Space Projects. Nowadays, artificial, man made satellites are orbiting at near the Sun distances. Therefore, the year 2007 is recognized as the International Heliophysical Year (IHY).

The official kick-off Meeting of the IHY was launched in February 2007, in Vien, Austria. The United Nations is the host of the IHY. The NASA is given the role of establishing and promoting the infra-structure of the activities globally at the administrative level. There have been a number of preparatory activities of IHY during the last two years. Besides the technical, social, administrative aspects, among the activities of the IHY celebrations in 2007, education has got one of the vital and important dimensions. Outreach activities to complement the formal educational programs are very popular and important in order to create awareness and interest in the social groups of all age, professions, and occupations since the awareness of society is an important step in using Space Weather effects for the wellness of the society.

In this case study, the school children are chosen to be the important target group. The children of today will be the flag carriers of tomorrow. Space Technology has been part of our daily life. The advanced technology of our time is vulnerable to the Space Weather events. Human roles and activities in space are increasing at a rapid rate. For example, International Space Laboratory at about 500 km. above the Earth; the plans of a base station on the Moon; manned missions to Mars are not the themes of science fiction any more. Therefore, space weather has been become more important since the beginning of the last century.

Objectives

We chose the space weather in particular the Sun as our subject of interest.

The main objective of this action is to pose the question, how school children who came from two different backgrounds conceive the Sun. The children, after an introductory seminar were asked to express themselves in drawing the Sun and the Sun – Earth relation.

Ankara is the capital of the TurkishRepublic. Since 1960’s, like all other main urban regions of Turkey, Ankara has been exposed to rural immigration also. Therefore, Ankara of 1960’s with less than one million inhabitants has become a very cosmopolitan impersonal city, inhabitating almost five million people today. We choose two schools in Ankara representing two different social backgrounds on the average.

School 1: Kıymet Necip Tesal İlköğretim Okulu is a public school.

School 2: ODTÜ Geliştirme Vakfı Koleji is a private school.

Impacts

To create some awareness on space weather among the school Children in Turkey. To have the school children feel themselves as part of a global scientific community in particular the European Research area. To establish any form of liaison with the UN/UNICEF and/or internationally linked activities. To integrate any relevant FP7 borne European actions.

Action Plan

The action will take place in three phases:

(i) The students will be asked to paint/draw/plot the Sun as they conceive it.

(ii) a)A basic set of lectures on the Sun, Space Weather will be delivered to them. The lectures are to be illustrated with slides, photographs and are planned to last for two hours.

b) There will be an hour long brain storming session during which the students are expected to be interactive and ask questions if they have any.

(iii) After the preparatory, they will be asked to draw the Sun again.

Time Table of the Events

Adhoc Committee Meetings:January 2007

Visits to the schools:April / May 2007

The execution of the task: May / June 2007

Dissemination Activities start: July 2007

Action Team and Participants

Yurdanur Tulunay (COST 724, FP6 SWEETS, COST 296, IHY National Coordinator)

Ersin Tulunay (COST 724, FP6 SWEETS, COST 296)

Atilla Ozguc (IHY Regional Coordinator)

Yalçın Gökçebağ(ArmoniArtGallery)

Aynur Pehlivanli (ArmoniArtGallery)

Yildiz Gocer (ODTÜ Geliştirme Vakfı Koleji)

Nur Arman(ODTÜ Geliştirme Vakfı Koleji)