On April 26, the University of Maryland held Maryland Day, its annual open house event. This was the 27th year that the university held the event, and the 25th time that ESSIC has participated. Despite the now-traditional poor weather, over 30 ESSIC faculty and staff members volunteered at the booth.
At the event, ESSIC gave away booklets, stickers, pamphlets, bookmarks, and keychains that celebrate the science that goes on at the Center. The bulk of these materials were generously donated by the Center’s federal partners at NASA and NOAA.
The Climate Resilience Network occupied one section of the booth. There, Jennifer Collins spoke on the educational opportunities within the projects, while Mike Maddox brought out a new sea level sensor that will be a part of a network of sensors monitoring Maryland’s shorelines. They gave out stickers and seed packs decorated with Climate Resilience Network messaging.
For the first time this year, ESSIC hosted FIRST LEGO League (FLL), a children robotics team that ESSIC scientist Jifu Yin works with. The students presented an instrument they made to measure the water quality in Chesapeake Bay. They found that the water quality became worse after snowfall as the road salt, resulting in the dead zone of this area.
The ESSIC/CISESS Lightning Group, which includes Guangyang Fang, Joseph Patton, and Damian Figueroa also came out to talk about their science. The group exhibited and demonstrated “Faraday Lightning Safety”, a virtual reality game based around guiding Spark, a virtual owl, to safety by moving it to various locations like a car, beach, or house. The game demonstrates how the Faraday cage effect – the phenomenon where an enclosed conductive structure shields its interior from external electric fields by redistributing charges and blocking electromagnetic waves – protects people from lightning during a thunderstorm. The group also distributed stickers and temporary tattoos with lightning safety slogans as well as answered questions about lightning safety that the community had.
Of note, the Dean of UMD’s College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, stopped by the ESSIC booth to play the Faraday Lighting Safety game. Even though he was on a tight schedule, the Dean spent extra time with the group, playing the VR lightning game, noting how impressive and immersive it was.
Thank you to all of the volunteers who came out to make the 26th Maryland Day special!
