Sustaining educational and public outreach programs in astronomy
William I. Clarkson, Donald J. Bord, Carrie M. Swift, Eric J. Rasmussen, David Matzke, Steven R. Murrell, Michael C. LoPresto, Timothy Campbell, Robert Clubb, Dennis Salliotte
备注：
3 pages, Whitepaper submitted to the American Astronomical Society Education Task Force, June 2016
We advocate meaningful support of sustained education-outreach partnerships between regional metropolitan undergraduate institutions and astronomical clubs and societies. We present our experience as an example, in which we have grown a partnership between the University of Michigan-Dearborn (hereafter UM-D, a 4-year primarily undergraduate institution or PUI), Henry Ford College (hereafter HFC, a 2-year undergraduate college), and maintained a strong collaboration with the Ford Amateur Astronomy Club (FAAC), which is highly active in the Detroit Metropolitan Area. By allowing each organization to play to its strengths, we have developed a continuum of education-outreach efforts at all levels, with connecting tissue between the previously disparate efforts. To-date, faculty and staff effort on these initiatives has been nearly entirely voluntary and somewhat ad-hoc. Here we suggest an initiative to sustain the continuum of education-outreach for the long-term. There are two levels to the suggested initiative. Firstly, partner institutions should dedicate at least half an FTE of faculty or staff effort specifically to education and outreach development. Secondly, professional societies like the AAS now have a great opportunity to support the education-outreach continuum at a national level, by facilitating communication between institutions and clubs that are considering a long-term partnership, by acting as a central resource for such partnerships, and possibly by convening or sponsoring events such as professional meetings among the metropolitan educational community.
The modern astrophysics is moving towards the enlarging of experiments and combining the channels for detecting the highest energy processes in the Universe. To obtain reliable data, the experiments should operate within several decades, which means that the data will be obtained and analyzed by several generations of physicists. Thus, for the stability of the experiments, it is necessary to properly maintain not only the data life cycle, but also the human aspects, for example, attracting, learning and continuity. To this end, an educational and outreach resource has been deployed in the fram…
We designed and built a do-it-yourself spectrograph assembly to demonstrate the concept of spectroscopy, an indispensable tool for exploring the cosmos. This spectrograph is designed for optical band (400-750 nm). It uses a transmission grating to disperse the light and a webcam to measure the spectrum. This spectrograph provides a resolving power ($λ/δλ$) of about 1000. This demonstration involves off-the-shelf materials costing less than \$500, thus making it an easy to build demonstration kit for a school or public setting. The kit is well-suited for performing various science experiments a…
The authors investigate how teaching art and astronomy together has the potential to inspire new art forms, enhance scientific public outreach, and promote art and science education. The authors teach an astro-animation class at the Maryland Institute College of Art in partnership with NASA scientists. The animations explore science in creative ways. Astrophysicists, educators, students, and the general public were surveyed to evaluate the experiences, and benefits from this project. The responses were very positive - the program is an effective way to stimulate art students to learn science, …
We have established a program aimed to the development of small computer applications and web applets to be used for educational purposes and to teach gravitational waves physics and technology, and for the general gravitational wave outreach activities. The computer programs are generated in collaboration with undergraduates and summer students as part of our teaching activities, and are freely distributed on a dedicated website. As part of this program, we have developed two computer-games related to gravitational wave science: 'Black Hole Pong' and 'Space Time Quest'. In this article we ove…
This paper describes the development of a new university physics course designed to integrate physics, education, research, and community partnerships. The coordinated system of activities links the new course to local community efforts in pre-college education, university education, university outreach, and research on teaching and learning. As documented both by gains on conceptual surveys and by qualitative analyses of field-notes and audiotapes of class, the course facilitates student learning of physics, as well as student mastery of theories and practices of teaching and learning physics…
During the past twelve years, NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has supported a wide range of Education and Public Outreach (E/PO) activities, targeting K-14 students and the general public. The purpose of the Fermi E/PO program is to increase student and public understanding of the science of the high-energy Universe, through inspiring, engaging and educational activities linked to the mission's science objectives. The E/PO program has additional more general goals, including increasing the diversity of students in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) pipeline, and…
While it is well known which curricular practices can improve student performance on measures of conceptual understanding, the sustaining of these practices and the role of faculty members in implementing these practices are less well understood. We present a study of the hand-off of Tutorials in Introductory Physics from initial adopters to other instructors at the University of Colorado, including traditional faculty not involved in physics education research. The study examines the impact of implementation of Tutorials on student conceptual learning across eight first-semester, and seven se…
Since 2017 the Italian Space Agency (ASI) participates to so-called "Alternanza Scuola-Lavoro" (i.e., "school-work synergy") outreach projects promoted by the Italian government, and the ASI Space Science Data Center (SSDC) actively contributes to them, with the primary aim of bringing students closer to space-related activities before choosing their university studies. The SSDC outreach program is split into two parts: one theoretical, in which relevant topic are presented and explained, and one practical, consisting of hands-on activities aimed to replicate scientific analysis of real space …
As large-scale international collaborations become the standard for astronomy research, a wealth of opportunities have emerged to create innovative education and public outreach (EPO) programming. In the past two decades, large collaborations have focused EPO strategies around published data products. Newer collaborations have begun to explore other avenues of public engagement before and after data are made available. We present a case study of the online EPO program of The Dark Energy Survey, currently one of the largest international astronomy collaborations actively taking data. DES EPO is…
The aim of this paper is to encourage science educators and outreach groups to look appropriately at the Sun and consider it as an extraordinary pedagogical tool to teach science at all education stages, what we call here as the solar educational spectrum, i.e., from K-12 to higher education, to develop informal educational projects that may lead to reach more complex material and to enlarge the experience at each stage. We review the main aspects of the Sun as an appetizer of the endless source of ideas to perform informal educational projects outside of a structured curriculum. We end up our…
To develop an increase in societal interest in the fundamental sciences of particle physics and particularly for maintaining the support structures needed to succeed in experiments that take several decades to develop and complete, requires strong educational back-grounding at all levels of the instructional system and notably at early stages in the process. While many (particularly young) students might show an early interest and aptitude for science and mathematics at the elementary level, the structures are not necessarily in place to capture, nurture and develop such nascent interests. To …
We shall describe the various activities done by us in Covid Times including outreach and educational workshops in Physics and Astronomy. We shall discuss the caveats in virtual teaching of Astronomy and the lessons learnt in the process.
Educational technology has attained significant importance as a mechanism for supporting experiential learning of science concepts. However, the growth of this mechanism is limited by the significant time and technical expertise needed to develop such products, particularly in specialized fields of science. We sought to test whether interactive, educational, online software modules can be developed effectively by students as a curriculum component of an advanced science course. We discuss a set of fifteen such modules developed by Harvard University graduate students to demonstrate various con…
Over the past two decades, I have been actively involved in teaching astronomy and astrophysics to Chicago Public School (CPS) students and their teachers, in collaboration with various groups as well as by myself. Valuable resources that we have created for schools include the Multiwavelength Astronomy Website, with modules for infrared, optical, ultraviolet, X-ray and gamma-ray astronomy. The content of each lesson is derived from interviews with scientists, archived oral histories, and/or memoirs. Lessons are evaluated by a science educator and at least one subject matter expert before bein…
AMACA: Astronomy education with a Multi-sensory, Accessible, and Circular Approach
INAF - Istituto di Radioastronomia（意大利国家天体物理研究所射电天文台）；IAU Office of Astronomy for Education Center Italy（国际天文学联合会天文学教育办公室意大利中心）；INAF - Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio di Bologna（意大利国家天体物理研究所博洛尼亚天体物理学与空间科学观测站）；INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova（意大利国家天体物理研究所帕多瓦天文台）；IAU OAE National Astronomy Education Coordinator Team for Italy（国际天文学联合会天文学教育办公室意大利国家协调团队）；University of Padua（帕多瓦大学）；IRCAM STSM Lab, Sound Perception and Design group（巴黎音乐声学研究所短期访问学者实验室声音感知与设计小组）
We present a simple, accessible, yet rigorous outreach/educational program focused on quantum information science and technology for high-school and early undergraduate students. This program allows students to perform meaningful hands-on calculations with quantum circuits and algorithms, without requiring knowledge of advanced mathematics. A combination of pen-and-paper exercises and IBM Q simulations helps students understand the structure of quantum gates and circuits, as well as the principles of superposition, entanglement, and measurement in quantum mechanics.
