Shaw-IAU Workshops by the OAE

The solar eclipse in Chile 2019, was a perfect opportunity to invite the public to join a scientific investigation through a citizen science initiative. The aim was to gather data that would help us understand how changes in the illumination pattern affect our planet's ionosphere. Shadowing by the Moon is expected to produce deviations in the Global Positioning System (GPS) accuracy. Our initiative, named "Hago Ciencia", invited people to collect GPS data with their smartphones before, during, and after the eclipse. Participated approximately 5,000 people, providing more than 280,000 geolocation. We found evidence that the positioning accuracy worsened by several decades of meters during the passage of the Moon's shadow when compared to before and after the time of totality.

Biography:

Physics teacher for the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile, and obtained her Doctorate in Sciences Education from the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, España in 2011. She is currently Assistant Professor in Physics Department of the Universidad de Santiago de Chile, and director of outreach and community relations. She has teaching experience in secondary schools and universities, researching the impact of active learning in physics on student knowledge, teacher training, and gender gaps. On these topics, she has been director and co-researcher of various projects with numerous publications in indexed journals, giving more than eighty talks at national and international events. In 2013 she was co-founder of the Chilean Society of Physical Education (SOCHEF) and assumed as its first president. Since then, she has participated in the organization and scientific committee of various physics and astronomy education meetings. Recently she has coordinated the citizen science initiative "Hago Ciencia" (similar with "I do Science" in english), promoted during the solar eclipse of 2019 in Chile with the aim of encouraging people from all over the country to participate in a massive research project, to investigate the effects of the solar eclipse on the GPS signal.

Watch a video for this poster (external link)