Published: March 15, 2008
Ms. Hemphill's student Emily Petroff continued her student project from last year. She presented her work on the star formation rate (from the cluster center) for cl1037 last year. This year, she worked on two additional clusters, cl1127 and cl1232. Emily presented her results at the OES Aardvark Expo, where she received a first place in the Physics and Astronomy category. For the recent moon eclipse she set up her telescope on our school soccer field and held a "star party" for teachers and students. She has acted as a student mentor for a middle school student interested in astronomy.
One of Ms. Hemphill's sophomore students collected data to calculate magnitudes to fit light curves to a regression curve (sine) for several eclipsing binaries. He used published data on T Cen to test the curve fitting. He presented his curve fitting work at the Aardvark Expo (3rd place in physics/astronomy). He will lead an astronomy workshop for elementary students next month and continue his light curve work next year. Students in Ms. Hemphill's honors chemistry completed a hydrogen spectrum lab and report as they learned about the atomic structure of elements. Finally, a group of students will present their project posters to the Rose City Astronomers at their April meeting.