Featured Student: Casey Jaeger

by WIRED Science Education     Department: Featured Student

If you know a high school student who really loves exploring the world of science, email us why they should become our next Featured Student.

Casey Jaeger is an energetic student researcher at Oak Ridge High School who, two years ago, played varsity football and thought of science as a barrier in the way of his athletic goals. He now devotes much of his time researching multiscale temperature data from weather balloons.

In My Own Words:
I am an energetic researcher who, two years ago, played varsity football and thought of science as a barrier in the way of my athletic goals. My opinion dramatically changed when I realized I didn't want to spend the rest of my life in locker rooms, and ever since then I have devoted myself to higher education. My day starts at 6AM with Mrs. Albert and ends at 10 or 11PM with homework or research. If there's ever a period of free time in between the start of my day and the finish, I visit a local gym. I have a deep interest in philosophy and sociology as well as math and science. In the future, I hope to extend my research into other fields to help other researchers expand their work.

My Research:
Climate research, and many other fields of science, are hindered by a multiscale dilemma. Analyzing multiscale data (discontinuous, unpredictable, time dependent, etc.) is no easy task. I have developed a method to step past this dilemma for climate research by utilizing weather balloons.  My method is meant to capture the fine scale variations in earth's temperature, such as the light/dark side of mountains, the drastic change in temperature from moving across varying terrains (sand, concrete, grass, etc.), and man-made influences (air conditioning, engine exhaust). I can effectively capture this wild variance in temperature using an array of weather balloons that sample temperature along their paths. The essence of my research is modeling this release of weather balloons using MATLAB and analyzing the results. Once the method we use to sample temperature is finished, I can either move on to another dilemma in climate science or attempt to apply my approach to another field of science.

I am currently preparing for the ICEF competition this spring and include a video describing my project, "The Traveling Observer:  A Novel Approach to Multiscale Approximation."  

Before you watch the video you might want a bit of the background.

What is Multiscale?   Multiscale functions (Earth's temperature) are functions with wild, unpredictable behavior, discontinuity, variance in time, etc.  A multiscale approximation cannot realistically take into account every fine scale variation of the function, so the best approach is to alter the way we sample it.  My technique accounts for tiny scale variation by taking rapid measurements of T along a path.

Why are Multiscale approximations important?  An accurate method of sampling multiscale data enables a multitude of scientific advancements.  Having the capability to sample temperature allows a global average calculation thus granting the ability to concisely state whether the planet's temperature is increasing or not.

My approach is to test the hypothesis with a modeling algorithm in MATLAB.  An array of particles is released on evenly distributed points over the earth.  Particle motion is simulated by solving ordinary differential equations using the Runge-Kutta method and a global average is calculated using zonal averages.  Several different functions are sampled to test accuracy.  Calculations of standard error suggest a way to incorporate multiscale data into global climate calculations.

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