Dylan Made The Cover of The Albuquerque West Side Journal

Dylan and a few kids in his 8th grade Science Class are getting all kinds of attention! They are participating in a study of the Sun's Shadows. For several months he has been dragging out his meter stick and his funny little contraption that he made. He goes out to measure shadow's at Solar Noon every weekend. I didn't think it was a big deal at first. I'm starting to understand what a honor it is and what a big deal it is to be a part of this. The 4 kids that are participating in the study went to a elementary school to do an Assembly about it. The project was accepted to a science convention in San Fransisco called AGU. The project is the first middle school project to be accepted to this huge conference. It also made it into the Albuquerque Journal. There is 3 pictures of Dylan and a huge article. The article is below explaining the project.

Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Students Gather Sun Data Around World
By Jack KingJournal Staff Writer
The four James Monroe Middle School students call themselves “Kage-Gumi” — “Shadow Friends” in Japanese — and their school science project is a testimony to how one small effort can grow into a world-wide event.It's also a testimony to the zest for teaching of their science teacher, Turtle Haste, and to her ability to nourish the curiosity and enterprise of her students.
The four students are eighth-graders Shannon Hamilton, Andy Olander, Meagan Richards and Dylan Terry. In doing their project, which they call “In the Shadows of Ice and Sand,” the four have gathered data from observers as far away as Antarctica.
On Dec. 17, Haste and Olander will make a poster presentation about “Shadows,” at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. It will be the first presentation from a middle school group ever entertained by the AGU. “In the Shadows of Ice and Sand” involves showing how seasons are a function of the angle of the Earth to the sun, the students said Monday.
Each week between Sept. 20 and March 22, they measure the length of a shadow cast by a one-meter stick. Next, with an astrolabe they have made from a straw, a geometry-class protractor, a piece of string and a weight, they measure the angle at which the sun rays hit the ground.
What they predict is that, through the winter, the stick's shadow will grow longer, as our spot on the globe moves away from the sun as the Earth turns on its axis. On the other hand, the angle measured by their homemade astrolabe will get smaller and smaller, because it measures one angle of a triangle two sides of which are getting longer and longer.
After Dec. 21, the winter solstice, they predict that the measurements will reverse as our spot on the globe begins to face more directly into the sun, they said.
But, their data doesn't stop with their own measurements. With Haste's aid, they have collected the same measurements from observers in Canada, China, Egypt, Greenland, Italy, Norway, Russia and Samoa.
Their most frequent correspondents are Al Baker and Phil Spindler, science support coordinators for Raytheon Co. working at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and Palmer Station in Antarctica. Haste found Baker and Spindler through the Antarctic Sun newspaper and a Web site produced by the U.S. Antarctic Program.
The two men agreed to take sun angle measurements in Antarctica and e-mail them to New Mexico, but their relationship with the students grew much more informal. Eventually, Haste's students wound up sending Baker and Spindler boxes filled with candy and fliers showing what they learned in science class, and peppering them with questions about life on the icy continent by e-mail and in two long-distance phone conversations.
“I've learned that people who go to Antarctica give up a lot in their daily life,” Hamilton said ruefully. “On the plus side, what they do sounds fun and Antarctica is beautiful. On the minus side, they only get to take two, two-minute showers a week.”
Louise Huffman, education outreach coordinator for the Antarctic Geological Drilling project, which takes core samples from the Antarctic seabed to study climate change, said from her office in Lincoln, Neb., that she met Haste at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in 2007.
Haste's enthusiasm and her range of questions about the drilling project made her stand out from many of the teachers she encounters in her job, she said. “I try to connect teachers with our project in Antarctica, but she has all these great ideas and I just try to help in any way I can,” Huffman said. “Turtle gets her students excited and encourages them to go out and find answers.”
All of the four “Shadow Friends” may not grow up to be scientists, but their experience with the project has given them practice in asking the kinds of questions on which science, and good reasoning, are based, Haste said. “I hope they all grow up to be smart consumers and wise decision-makers,” she said.
The four students will visit Whittier Elementary School this morning in connection with International Pole to Pole Day, which is Thursday. “They're going to share what they've learned from their project, and what they've learned about Antarctica from Al and Phil,” Haste said.