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, share an artist's viewpoint beyond the classroom, and engage with the public.
Maximizing the public impact of astronomy projects in the next decade requires NSF-funded centers to support the development of online, mobile-friendly outreach and education activities. EPO teams with astronomy, education, and web development expertise should be in place to build accessible programs at scale and support astronomers doing outreach.
The Virtual Observatory (VO) is an international attempt to collect astronomical data (images, simulation, mission-logs, etc), organize it and develop tools that let astronomers access this huge amount of information. The VO not only simplifies the work of professional astronomers, it is also a valuable tool for education and public outreach. For teachers and astronomers who actively promote astronomy to the public the VO is an great opportunity to access real astronomical data, use them and have a taste of the workaday life of astronomers.
The Sonoma State University (SSU) Education and Public Outreach (E/PO) group leads the Swift Education and Public Outreach program. For Swift, we have previously implemented broad efforts that have contributed to NASA's Science Mission Directorate E/PO portfolio across many outcome areas. Our current focus is on highly-leveraged and demonstrably successful activities, including the wide-reaching Astrophysics Educator Ambassador program, and our popular websites: Epo's Chronicles and the Gamma-ray Burst (GRB) Skymap. We also make major contributions working collaboratively through the Astrophys…
We present a programmatic study of physicists' and astronomers' attitudes toward education and public outreach (EPO) using 131 survey responses from members of the Dark Energy Survey. We find a disparity between the types of EPO activities researchers deem valuable and those in which they participate. Most respondents are motivated to engage in EPO by a desire to educate the public. Barriers to engagement include career- and skill-related concerns, but lack of time is the main deterrent. We explore the value of centralized EPO efforts and conclude with a list of recommendations for increasing …
The International Astronomical Youth Camp (IAYC) is an astronomy education outreach event with more than 50 years of history and over 1,700 unique participants from 81 nationalities. The International Workshop for Astronomy e.V. (IWA) is the non-profit organization behind the IAYC, established in 1979 and based in Germany. The IAYC's unprecedented longevity in a rapidly globalizing world has meant that financial inequities decreases the reach of the camp to people from the Global South compared to Global North countries. Though nationalities represented per camp has increased steadily since it…
$\textit{Thailand-UK Python+Astronomy Summer School}$ (ThaiPASS), a collaborative project comprising UK and Thai institutions and assess its impact and possible application to schools in the United Kingdom. Since its inception in 2018, the annual ThaiPASS have trained around 60 Thai high-school students in basic data handling skills using Python in the context of various astronomy topics, using current research from the teaching team. Our impact assessment of the 5 day summer schools show an overwhelmingly positive response from students in both years, with over $80\%$ of students scoring the …
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 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 organizatio…
The new field of gravitational wave astrophysics requires a growing pool of students and researchers with unique, interdisciplinary skill sets. It also offers an opportunity to build a diverse, inclusive astronomy community from the ground up. We describe the efforts used by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) NSF Physics Frontiers Center to foster such growth by involving students at all levels in low-frequency gravitational wave astrophysics with pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) and establishing collaboration policies that ensure broad participation by dive…
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…
The International Cosmic Day (ICD) is an astroparticle physics outreach event for high-school students and brings together students and different physics outreach projects from all over the world. Groups of scientists, teachers, and students meet for one day to learn about cosmic rays and perform an experiment with atmospheric muons. All participating groups investigate an identical question. The students are enabled to work together like in an international collaboration, discussing their results in joint video conferences. Analyzing data, comparing and discussing with other "young scientists…
The open science framework defined in the German-Russian Astroparticle Data Life Cycle Initiative (GRADLCI) has triggered educational and outreach activities at the Irkutsk State University (ISU), which is actively participated in the two major astroparticle facilities in the region: TAIGA observatory and Baikal-GVD neutrino telescope. We describe the ideas grew out of this unique environment and propose a new open science laboratory based on education and outreach as well as on the development and testing new methods and techniques for the multimessenger astronomy.
In our epoch, images are a powerful way to convey a message to a large audience. Through the use of amazing astronomical photographs, science can be communicated effectively at different levels, to a very diverse audience of all ages. In fact, astrophotography combines aesthetic appeal with the illustration of the science behind astronomical phenomena. This is the aim of the exhibit "A che Punto è la NOTTE - A scientific exhibition of astrophotography" organized by us in Italy, in October 2020, with the partnership of the cultural association PhysicalPub. Many different authors, both single in…
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…
Professional astronomy is historically not an environment of diverse identities. In recognizing that public outreach efforts affect career outcomes for young people, it is important to assess the demographics of those being reached and continually consider strategies for successfully engaging underrepresented groups. One such outreach event, the International Astronomical Youth Camp (IAYC), has a 50-year history and has reached ~1700 participants from around the world. We find that the IAYC is doing well in terms of gender (59% female, 4.7% non-binary at the most recent camp) and LGBT+ represe…
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…
We have created a website, called "Black Holes: Gravity's Relentless Pull", which explains the physics and astronomy of black holes for a general audience. The site emphasizes user participation and is rich in animations and astronomical imagery. It won the top prize of the 2005 Pirelli INTERNETional Awards competition for the best communication of science and technology using the internet. This article provides a brief overview of the site. The site starts with an opening animation that introduces the basic concept of a black hole. The user is then invited to embark on a journey from a backya…
The nascent field of gravitational-wave astronomy offers many opportunities for effective and inspirational astronomy outreach. Gravitational waves, the "ripples in space-time" predicted by Einstein's theory of General Relativity, are produced by some of the most energetic and dramatic phenomena in the cosmos, including black holes, neutron stars and supernovae. The detection of gravitational waves will help to address a number of fundamental questions in physics, from the evolution of stars and galaxies to the origin of dark energy and the nature of space-time itself. Moreover, the cutting-ed…
Back in mid 2018, we were organizing eXtreme19, a conference on astro-particle physics held in Padova on the topic of extremely energetic emission from galaxies. For the preparation of the graphical material in support of the conference we seeked for a collaboration with talented art students. To this purpose, we joined the Italian programme PCTO (Percorsi per le Competenze Trasversali e per l Orientamento) of high school student stages in job centers. Emily, Beatrice, and Chiara from the high school Liceo Artistico Statale Amedeo Modigliani in Padova accepted our invitation and started a 6-mo…
Astroaccesible is an outreach project hosted by the Instituto de Astrof\'ısica de Andaluc\'ıa - CSIC aimed at the teaching and popularisation of the astronomy among all publics independently of their capabilities and abilities, paying special attention to the collective of blind and visually impaired (BVI). Among the different strategies and resources using in our project, we have developed new 3D models representing in relief some of the stars, constellations and deep sky objects that can be observed during night from the Northern hemisphere in spring and summer. These models can be used by B…
Physics outreach programs provide a critical context for informal experiences that promote the transition from new student to contributing physicist. Prior studies have suggested a positive link between participation in informal physics outreach programs and the development of a student's physics identity. In this study, we adopt a student-focused investigation to explore the effects of informal programs on dimensions of physics identity, sense of community, 21st century skill development, and motivation. We employed a mixed methods study combining a survey instrument (117 responses) and inter…
Astro-Animation -- How Artists and Scientists Envision the Universe
Maryland Institute College of Art（马里兰艺术学院）；Liverpool John Moores University（利物浦约翰摩尔斯大学）；Transart Institute（跨艺术研究所）；University of Maryland, Baltimore County（马里兰大学巴尔的摩县分校）；NASA Goddard Space Flight Center（美国宇航局戈达德太空飞行中心）
The Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) and the Education and Public Outreach (EPO) Department serve the strategic goal of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) to broaden public awareness of, support for, and participation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). ODI operates a suite of programs designed to support underrepresented minority undergraduate, graduate students in pursuit of careers in STEM. EPO highlights the discoveries, technologies, and careers pioneered and exemplified by the NRAO via multipurpose engagement strategies that include face-to-fa…
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…
