Astrophysics Missions, Grants, and Forum Nuggets for August 2013

2 Lynn Cominsky Small Satellites for Secondary Students Educator Training July 8-13, 2013 Sonoma State University conducted a week-long training at the Aero Institute in Palmdale, CA. Eighteen educators learned how to solder, build, test, debug and analyze data from the S4 payload. They launched the payloads on high-powered rockets, acquiring real-time telemetry. High-school teacher Donald Repucci retrieves rocket after successful flight to 4500 feet above the Lucerne dry lake bed Middle-school teacher Beth Hill displays her completed payload The balloon launch was cancelled due to rain, so high-school teacher Sam Koshy took a gondola for a run up the bleachers to acquire data 3 payloads on balloon gondola

Workshop: Reflecting and Strategizing about Measuring EPO Impact 28 community members representing Education and Public Outreach programs across all four Forums attended the workshop, “Reflecting and Strategizing about Measuring EPO Impact,” on Tuesday, July 23, First, participants identified the audiences their EPO programs reach, selecting one audience about which they wanted to discuss further issues with other community members. Next, participants broke into four groups, delineated by audience type, and discussed the impacts they measure through their various evaluation programs, the tools they use to measure impacts, the results they have documented, and any challenges they have encountered along the way. Finally, community members reported on the group discussions, highlighted next steps, and filled out evaluation forms for the session. Overall, it was a great discussion! A paper will be drafted for the ASP Conference proceedings and shared with the community.

NASA All-Stars Program – University of Chicago, July 15-30, 2013 Julia Brazas The NASA All-Stars program brought together a diverse group of 9 teachers and 13 students from the Chicago Public Schools and an Islamic School as co-learners using our NASA-funded Multiwavelength Astronomy website, which presents story-based lessons on the science, history, tools, and impact of astronomy across the spectrum featuring NASA missions and multimedia. Multiwavelength Astronomy Four teacher-mentors led small-group morning sessions with their peers, joined by Professor Don York. In the afternoon, students joined the teachers for science talks given by University of Chicago scientists. Skype sessions were arranged with guest speakers (including Dr. Harvey Moseley of NASA) who participated in the interviews for the story-based lessons. Each participant received an iPad Mini to use for exploring the lessons, doing research, presenting their work, and blogging. The Minis were given to the participants on the final day, after teachers presented their lesson plans using the Multiwavelength Astronomy resources and students presented short research projects using data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Each student also received a family membership to the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum. The program provided the opportunity for participants to meet a NASA scientist and use NASA educational resources for in-depth content learning.

From Earth to the Solar System at NASA's Training and Visitor Center Madrid Deep Space Communications Complex This FETTSS exhibit includes 26 images selected from the free catalogue, an introductory panel and the FETTSS logo as the title of the collection. All images are in large print format along with explanatory texts in Spanish and English. The FETTSS exhibition is running in the exhibitions room on 3 walls. FETTSS-Madrid will run from the 13th of July until the 14th of December During these 5 months, we anticipate about 10,000 visitors. Kim Arcand

Kepler EPO—July 2013 July 14 & 15: Two presentations at the American Association of Physics Teachers Summer 2013 Meeting, including a 4-hour short course on exoplanets and how to access and use currently available planetary data, conducted by Susan Thompson July 18 & 19: Two presentations for the FOSS Planetary Science Institute at the Lawrence Hall of Science, including a special public evening panel with Natalie Batalha, Gibor Basri, & Tori Hoehler July 21: Two presentations for the Astronomical Society of the Pacific pre- conference Galileo Teacher workshops with a 2.5 hour workshop by Alan Gould and a closing session by Steve Howell. July was Kepler teacher workshop month!