The Northern Lights

This activity requires students to plot the location and boundaries of a typical auroral oval in the Arctic region. They will see its geographic extent and determine its relationship to familiar continents and countries. As they perform this activity, they will learn how aurora are described by scientists and by other students, the geographic locations of aurora based on satellite data, how aurora appear in the sky at different geographic latitudes, and the height of aurora above the ground. This is one of series of activities that will help students understand how the Northern Lights work, what causes them, and how to observe them. Educational levels: Middle school

Aurora, What Causes the Northern Lights?

This color brochure answers common questions about the aurora, including its cause and explanations of its colors, shapes, and location. It lists resources for further study. Educational levels: Informal education

The Northern Lights: The Human Dimension

In this activity, students discuss prior knowledge about aurora, read essays about auroral activity and describe what they have read. They will learn about this phenomenon, how scientists have studied it in the past, and how older ideas have been replaced as knowledge expands. Educational levels: Middle school

The Northern Lights: Aurora Triangulation from Photographs

In this activity students use photos to determine parallax angle shifts and to calculate auroral height. They are following the work of the Norwegian scientist Carl Stormer, who used a similar technique to find out how high up aurora were located. Stormer made the photographic process an exacting science by carefully designing procedures and mathematical techniques to minimize many different sources of experimental error. This is one of a series of activities that will help students understand how the Northern Lights work, what causes them, and how to observe them. Educational levels: High school, Middle school

The Northern Lights: Estimating Heights with a Clinometer

In this activity students apply direct measurement of angles and length to determine height. They will use the tangent ratio and a clinometer, an easy-to-make instrument that allows one to estimate the height of an object such as a building, tree, or flag pole by using the properties of a right triangle. This is one of a series of activities that will help students understand how the Northern Lights work, what causes them, and how to observe them. Educational levels: High school, Middle school

Higher Levels of Confusion: Rocket Sensors in the Northern Lights

In the summer of 2014 I spent nine weeks working with a team in the physics department of the University of Oslo in an attempt to determine if data from two sensors could be collected by one sensor. The two sensors, built by the University of New Hampshire and the University of Oslo, were part of the 2012 MICA rocket mission into the aurora borealis; they collected data on electron temperature and density respectively. Despite intense efforts, we were not successful in coming up with a relationship between the data sets of the two sensors. I learned that research often produces, if not definite results, then “higher levels of confusion,” which aid in the search for future answers