British Science week 2015
This year we were at Wellesely House school in Broadstairs. They were having a week devoted entirely to Space in all their lessons.
The pupils were geared up for viewing the partial solar eclipse as their science teacher Kerry Sabin-Dawson had 30 solar viewers ready and had invited Luigi from f1telescopes to bring his solar telescopes. The cloudy morning did not dent their enthusiasm as they enjoyed measuring the effects of the Moon even if they did not actually see the Sun. The Hilderstone radio club had obtained a data logger for them to use. They found that the air temperature dropped from 9.00 C at the start of the eclipse at 8.30 to 5.60 C at 9.30. It took twenty minutes before the temperature began climbing again. The light level dropped dramatically to a tenth of its value, from 4.6 kilolux to only 0.4 kilolux but rose steadily back to normal. The pupils noticed how cold and dark it became at the peak.
Also they were able to detect the changes in the ionosphere by using a radio tuned to radio Netherlands which showed a marked decrease in reception quality.