Strange Sightings - QuickQuest

Strange Sightings

Opening Scene:

Your team of three reporters work for a venerable newspaper called the City Times and the team has just received shocking news. The City Times has been purchased by a competing local paper called Big City News and the new owners have decided that the City Times will cease printing a daily paper and the current City News wed site will be enhanced to replace the paper. Everyone who works for the City Times paper is concerned about their jobs. No doubt people are going to loose their jobs, certainly the first to go are those people who run the printing presses. The new owners are certain to examine the need of everyone, and decide who to keep and who to go. The unusual cold and snowy winter and especially the bitter cold winter day just seem to add to the gloom of everyone.

Then just after 10 A.M., the editor appears at her office door and waves at your team. It is a summons to go to her office. This seems to be an ordinary summons but everyone is a little edgy and move with a quicker step than usual to the office. Lost in the din of the news of the sale was the excited movement of a group of citizens of the city through the newsroom to the editor’s office. Upon entering the packed office your team notices the group is a good representative cross section of the population of the city. And your team notices that everyone is starting to unbundle their heavy coats and two people have removed their darkened photogray glasses. How did so many people get into the office without being noticed? Regardless they are here and they all appear to be very excited. They were all seeing some unusual effects on or near the sun earlier today but their descriptions were had to follow. And they made it clear; they wanted to know what they saw.

A comparison of notes after the citizens left revealed the following:

Phenomenon 1 - Two bright spots on each side of the sun.

Phenomenon 2 – Early in morning a bright glow appeared to be sitting on top of the sun in the shape close to a tall thin rectangle.

Phenomenon 3 – As the sun raised above the horizon its color was reddish-orange, suddenly it turns green momentarily, then back to reddish-orange.

Everyone in the group claims to have seen 1 and 2, but only one person claims to have seen number 3.


The Deadline:

Everyone is feeling the pressure in the editor’s office. The citizens are gone but not silenced. They will go around the city and tell everyone about reporting their sightings to the newspaper. Soon people will be calling City News or checking the web site to get information about the strange sightings.

The editor assigns to your team the task of identifying and explaining how each phenomenon occurs using basic physics properties, and to solve the mystery. Why did only one person report seeing phenomenon 3? And of course pictures are always good.

The editor is very experienced and will not tolerate sloppy reporting and directs the team to use a problem solving strategy called the Big6TM to ensure reliable conclusions. The editor insists that each step of the Big6TM must be followed to help in identifying and explaining each phenomenon.

She directs your team to the following web sites:

http://www.big6.com/showarticle.php?id=16

http://nb.wsd.wednet.edu/big6/big6_resources.htm

http://www.fortbend.k12.tx.us/library/big6.htm

http://205.213.162.11/project_big6/big6/big6.htm

As usual the information will be posted on the City Times’ web site as soon as the editor deems the identities and explanations of the phenomena accurate. The editor reminds you to submit a word document of your report that contains a complete, concise and clear explanation, including diagrams and photos of each phenomenon. The editor also emphasizes the report must be in final copy form with hot links to all web resources.

Your team reassembles in the newsroom and begins brainstorming to outline what must be done for the article, and everyone is aware of the deadline. One team member suggests that maybe trying to visualize the phenomena might help.

Pathfinder:

**** http://alltheweb.com
Search terms - sun phenomenon

Sample Results:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_phenomenon

Gives a nice list of optical phenomena and includes short descriptions and photographs of several phenomena. Many new search terms can be generated from this site.

http://www.astrophys-assist.com/wilobs/weathwin/sundog.htm

Contains photos and a description of “sun dogs”, this is one of the optical effects the students are looking for. This site does not contain an explanation of the effect. No adds on this site.

**** http://www.altavista.com/web/adv
Search terms – sky optics

Sample Results:

http://www.atoptics.co.uk/halosim.htm

A science oriented site, there are no adds. Contains many links to numerous optical effects. Contains explanations of the effects. Contains a searchable index that leads to many other good resources.

http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/index.html

Contains an outstanding explanation of the “green flash” and photos.

**** http://www.ask.com

Search terms – green flash, sunset

Sample Results:

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/atmos/redsun.html

Contains nice photos and simple but effective ray diagrams that help explain the phenomena. Science oriented site – no adds.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_061.html

More of a lay persons explanation of the phenomena. Has some good comments but lacks a good explanation for the uniformed and no photos.

**** http://www.exalead.com/search/C=0/?2p=1

Search terms - sun pillars

http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/opt/ice/sp.rxml

Science oriented site. Nice photos and contains a very sparce explanation of the phenomena.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/06may_pillar.htm

Nice NASA site. Contains it all photos and explanations. The bonus is the site show the phenomena is not restricted to the sun.

http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF7/790.html

A limited site. Contains one poor quality picture and a very wordy explanation.

**** http://www.google.com/advanced_search

Search terms – refraction, reflection, light, optical sky phenomenon (just for the fun of it)

http://science.jrank.org/pages/612/Atmospheric-Optical-Phenomena.html

Contains a list of many phenomena with links to each. The links lead to limited explanations and no photos.

http://www.auf.asn.au/meteorology/section12.html

An extensive Australian science oriented site that contains good explanations for most phenomena. No photos!

http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/guides/mtr/opt/home.rxml

Science oriented site with brief explanations and links to more extensive explanations and photos.

http://www.cityes.org/natural-phenomena-in-geology.html

Boooo for this site. Contains hard to follow explanations of phenomena. This site seems to be designed to catch younger web surfers so they will view and click the advertisement.

**** http://www.ditto.com/default.aspx

Search term – sun pillars

A site that contains only photos. Enter Sun Pillars. Click on a photo and it leads to the original site that contains the photo. Some photos do not contain a sun pillar, so a person must have some background knowledge to use the search results effectively.