Geography/IDIS 191
Deanna van Dijk, Professor of Geology, Geography and Environmental Studies
As part of the Introductory Meteorology course (Geography/IDIS 191), students participated in a NASA study called The CERES S’COOL Project. CERES (Cloud and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System) is a system of high-tech satellites orbiting the Earth, collecting data on cloud coverage so as to gain a better understanding of Earth’s climate change. With guidelines from the S’COOL (Students’ Cloud Observations On-Line) project, meteorology students made observations of the sky above Calvin when CERES was located above the campus. After a month of recording observations, the class sorted their cumulative data and submitted it on-line to NASA. The student data will be compared with data collected by CERES in order to monitor the accuracy of the satellite. Even though the NASA study is considering global climate change, Calvin students were able to participate right here on the Calvin College campus because local cloud cover affects the global environment. View posters below:
