Hello and greetings from the beautiful capital city of Oregon. My name is Michael Lampert. I teach 9th through 12th grade physics, electronics and robotics at the newest high school here in Salem, home to the West Salem Titans. Our school of 1400 is surrounded by cherry orchards, a llama farm, and has an outstanding view of the Cascade mountain range including Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Hood. We are an agriculture community with a mix of professional and government workers.

I graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in physics and spent that summer riding my bike across America. I was attracted to Oregon's clean air and water, the bountiful farms, the excellent skiing, rafting and hiking, the closeness of both the eastern high desert and the magnificent coastline. I attended graduate school at Oregon State University and received Master's degrees in Physics and Science Education before becoming a high school teacher. It was a difficult decision for me because I had wanted to pursue a doctorate degree in Physics. Eventually I gave up that dream and settled into full time teaching. It is a choice that has propelled me forward in life.

I have devoted a lot of my time to becoming a better teacher. I have received dozens of grants, and this has made my classroom an exciting place to learn. Students have studied the physics of airbags by deploying them in the classroom; they have learned to simulate the real world using interactive physics software; they have explored the physics of sports by digitizing video of themselves and they have experimented with "green" energy by constructing solar powered Lego cars. My students have entered Project FIRST, a national robotics competition, where they designed and built their own robot. They have taken physics lessons, such as plasma physics or laser physics, to the local elementary schools in a project called PIPE (Partners in Physics Education). They have been nationally recognized as first and second place winners in the Toshiba ExploraVision contest with entries on controlling ADHD with bio-sensing devices, and preventing earthquake damage using Nitinol reinforced buildings. My students are three time state champions in the United States Academic Decathlon.

I feel I have been successful as a teacher when I see my students succeed. And it has been heartwarming to me to be recognized for their achievements through the many awards I have received. I have been a Tandy technology scholar, a Northern Life Unsung Hero and I was named the 2000 Presidential Awardee for Oregon where I had a once in a lifetime chance to address the House Committee on Science.

I had the most amazing teacher in my first year of college. He was a mix of a drama teacher and a physics teacher (a rightful blend, as physics really is the Art of the Gods). At the end of one fantastic lesson he played a five minute film of Piaget trying to teach density to different aged kids. It made such an impression on me when I realized that for some the brain simply has not matured to be educated. I knew then that I was hooked on education and I volunteered to teach whenever I could. In college I took a portable planetarium out to the elementary schools. I would drive hundreds of miles to small two room school houses to teach astronomy. The joy of seeing little kids learn has always been with me. It reminds me of the happiness I had as a child when I first slid my thumb across a trail of ants. I sat in wonderment watching them pile up inches apart from each other unable to figure out which way to go.

I have been told that in China, the tradition at the last day of class is for the teacher to applaud the students for their hard work. I hear the applause of my parents, my friends and my family who have taught me so well in my life and now I am honored to applaud the next generation of students.

Measurements addressing quantitative ozone loss, polar stratospheric cloud nucleation, and large polar stratospheric parcticles.

Principle Investigator: Terry Deshler, University of Wyoming

Some Background: The stratospheric ozone layer provides an essential shield from solar ultra violet radiation for all life. The discovery in 1985 of large seasonal ozone losses above Antarctica took the world and the scientific community by surprise. Since that time the cause of this unprecedented ozone loss has been identified and governmental and commercial controls are in place to reduce the stratospheric chlorine load. While the overall cause of large ozone losses are understood there are many details which must still be clarified before we can comprehensively model the stratospheric ozone balance.

What we will be doing: During the Austral winter and spring we will launch helium balloons that carry scientific instruments which measure the ozone and parcticle concentration in the stratosphere about 30km high. This will be part of an International experiment to learn more about the details of ozone depletion. This experiment will compare balloon-borne ozone observations from 9 Antarctica stations, South Pole, Belgrano, Dumont d.Urville, Marambio, Neumayer, Rothera, Syowa, Davis, and McMurdo. The balloon releases will be coordinated to sample air parcels previously sampled at another location. Comparing the ozone changes within these air parcels, as they are tracked around the continent, provides an excellent test of our understanding of stratospheric chemistry as represented in the chemical transport models. Similar experiments have been completed on several occasions in the Arctic, but this is the first opportunity in the Antarctic.

What we will learn: During my time in Antarctica, we should be able to see in real time the depletion of stratospheric ozone and then its recovery later when the air warms in October. The observations from McMurdo will add to our database of annual profiles of ozone in late winter and spring. These observations will be completed as stratospheric chlorine levels are peaking. This provides, at a minimum, a measurement base to detect the first signs of ozone recovery. Such vertical ozone profiles provide one of the crucial tools needed to observe the first signs of recovery following the decline in stratospheric chlorine. These measurements are archived in the database of the Network for the Detection of Stratospheric Change.

In addition to the ozone observations we will extend our in situ observations of polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs). The fundamental measurements from the PSC instruments provide estimates of the size and concentration of the parcticles that form in these clouds. Heterogeneous chemistry . which activates chlorine so that it can then destroy ozone . occurs on the surface of these parcticles. These measurements provide estimates of the surfaces available for heterogeneous chemistry, of the rates of denitrification and dehydration; and of parcticle composition.

29 October, 2003:

Farewell

30 September, 2003:

MainBody Arrives

30 August, 2003:

Success!

7 August, 2002:

Cold Regions Research Lab

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