School district gets dialed in

Marisa O’Neil

Newport-Mesa students are getting a chance to see a marriage between

the latest technology and some of the most ancient.

Beginning Monday, a webcam will broadcast live images from a

special sundial atop the Newport-Mesa Unified School District

offices. The dial joins others worldwide as part of the EarthDial

project, inspired by the MarsDial -- currently having come technical

difficulties -- on the Spirit rover.

“There was one on Mars before that green guy stepped on it,” joked

board member and sundial enthusiast Tom Egan.

Even if rogue Martians got a hold of the MarsDial, they’d learn a

little about their closest neighbor. The three-inch square dial,

which sits atop one of Spirit’s solar panels, says “Mars” in 17

languages, has colored corners for calibrating its cameras and

explains Spirit’s quest.

Like its EarthDial counterparts, it displays the motto “Two Worlds

One Sun.”

“With this [website], children can compare times between the two

worlds and access dials all over the world,” said Newport-Mesa

science and math coordinator Marcia Encinas.

Encinas drew on her mathematics knowledge to build the dial, on a

roughly 32-inch square piece of plywood. Plans for the EarthDial,

which she got from the Planetary Society, were 24 pages long and

required careful calculations and calibrations to make it work in its

specific location on the district building’s roof.

The science and math involved make it fit perfectly into school

science lessons, particularly the third-grade curriculum, Encinas

said.

“This is a great way of getting students excited about math,” Egan

said.

The EarthDial Project, started by the Planetary Society and

scientist Bill Nye of the television show “Bill Nye the Science Guy,”

includes sundials in eight states and eight countries, Encinas said.

Newport-Mesa’s is one of only two she knows of in California.

Encinas helped set up the sundial Friday. At 11:07 a.m., a shadow

read just past the line marked 11 -- right on time. The webcam

trained on the dial will update the time every 10 minutes on the

district website, which will also include links to the other

worldwide cameras.

If the Spirit starts broadcasting again, they will have a link to

the MarsDial, too.

“Being an engineer, I care about efficiency and optimizing

things,” Egan said. “Because we have the infrastructure in place, it

was easy to put this together.”