The National Aeolian Detritus Project

University Of Rhode Island, Kingston RI

Investigators

Abstract

The essence of the National Aeolian Detritus Project (NADP) is disarmingly simple - what falls out of the sky and what does it mean? Middle school through college students are collecting airborne particulate on a 2.3 square meter sheet of coated nylon draped in a plastic wading pool. They remove particulate from the collector with forensic evidence tape and concentrate it on filters for examination. Simple light microscopy is the most useful identification technique and, in most cases, requires only an image reference for identification. The NADP center is assisting collecting sites through our website, www.skydust.org, by providing an on-line catalog of particulate images, arranging advanced identification techniques, and developing scientifically valid lines of inquiry tailored to the circumstances of each site. Data collected by member sites are published on our website in Geospatial Information Systems format and can be accessed by anyone. Our collecting procedure is not type-specific and invariably captures plant and animal biologicals and terrestrial mineral fractions. Chemical particulate and micrometeorites are found less frequently. Thus these collections offer a line of inquiry for almost any classroom purpose or curriculum. Our preliminary work with NASA Space Grant has shown good correlation with sophisticated studies of Asian dust transport, suggesting that our studies can be used as proxies for the investigation of Martian dust storms. This project offers a highly motivating and easily adopted approach to best practices, strongly supports Standards-based science curricula, and is accessible to urban and underrepresented student populations.