Amateur radio in the classroom: How Long Island teachers plan to use the technology to teach STEM concepts
Instructor John Geimer discusses the physics of radio antennae for educators at Stony Brook University on Wednesday. Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas
As back-to-school season inches closer, about a dozen Long Island teachers on Wednesday got a lesson in amateur radio — a field, enthusiasts say, that has surprising applications in the modern world.
"Radio is all around us," said Ed Wilson, vice president of the Suffolk County Radio Club and a member of the American Radio Relay League's board of directors. "I think a lot of the students ... don’t realize that walking around on their cellphones, they’re carrying a device that has four or five different radios within it."
The radio relay league's Institute on Wireless Technology, in conjunction with the Suffolk County Radio Club, hosted Wednesday's session, during which teachers learned the basics of electricity and how it relates to amateur radio, which allows users to exchange messages using designated frequencies.
The session, part of a four-day introductory program at Stony Brook University, comes as amateur radio is seeing an increase in popularity, according to Wilson, 54, of Shirley.
Wilson said the program aims to increase amateur radio’s exposure, particularly within educational settings, and show teachers how they can use radio to teach STEM concepts.
After completing the workshop, Wilson said teachers receive equipment and reference books valued between $1,200 and $1,500 and access to lesson plans.
'It's all radio'
Eric Sepenoski, an elementary science teacher at the Ross School in East Hampton, was among the workshop's attendees. He said that beyond having students use radio to understand electricity, he wants to emphasize its real-life applications.
For example, he said, radio is used to track marine mammals in the Atlantic Ocean.
The Atlantic Ocean "is really close to our school," said Sepenoski, 42, of East Marion. "So [with] shipping lanes and the heavy traffic that we see in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, there’s a real interest in using radio signals to track where these large marine mammals are and find a way for the ships and mammals to not meet and collide with one another."
Eric Sepenoski practices soldering components to a circuit board at Wednesday's workshop. Credit: Newsday/John Paraskevas
Meredith Nussbaum, 37, also attended Wednesday. The Central Islip High School science teacher said she learned how radio can be used to track and make contact with the International Space Station.
"I think that’s just a cool bit of understanding technology and how broad of a reach radio can have," she said.
Nussbaum, of Farmingville, runs a coding and programming club at her high school. She said her students are interested in learning about smaller electronics, so she plans to share with them the knowledge she gained about building electronic components and soldering.
She said she came away with a better appreciation for what radio can do.
"So much of what we rely on ... it’s all radio," Nussbaum said. "I think that once you begin to understand that, you really start to see that signals are like everywhere, and it’s like learning a secret language."
