Astrophysics EPOESS & Missions Nuggets for June 2010

The Sky Rangers EPOESS award is enabling the ASP’s Astronomy from the Ground Up (AFGU) community to grow to over 600 members, now including rangers and interpreters from outdoor education facilities and parks around the country. AFGU is a network of educators and interpreters from museums, parks, and nature centers who are actively expanding their public programming to include more astronomy content. Partnerships with NASA's Night Sky Network, the National Park Service, the National Association for Interpretation, and the Association of Science-Technology Centers are leading to workshop venues with stunning dark skies and richer content that connects those skies to NASA science. Participants of Sky Rangers workshops enhance astronomy content knowledge and presentation skills through lessons on: Sky navigation Hands-on science activities (many from NASA’s Night Sky Network) Astronomy event logistics Telescope operation Developing and presenting constellation tours NASA mission results as they relate to celestial objects Past workshops: Bryce Canyon National Park, October 13 – 16, 2009, 24 Participants Online Workshop, February 1 – March 26, 2010, 30 participants Spring follow-up, May 10 – 21, 2010, open to all Sky Rangers Future workshops: Yosemite National Park, October 7 – 12, 2010 Accepting applications through June 30: Acadia National Park, 2011 Yosemite National Park, photo © Tyler Nordgren Advancing science literacy through astronomy “I was the person with the least sky knowledge at the workshop. Since that time you could say my sky has opened up for me... During the months since then, my co-workers and I have developed and conducted a number of programs.”

3 NASA Center for Astronomy Education* Professional Development Workshops for Astronomy Instructors Northwest Regional Teaching Exchange, Seattle, WA May 15, 2010 Attended by 28 astronomy instructors Miami, Florida Workshops May 22-23, 2010 Attended by 23 astronomy instructors Educator Evaluation Responses: “Very useful and practical! Will be able to use it in my class next week!” “Fantastic. Motivating. Inspiring. Convincing.” “Feel more comfortable with so many resources – Will be able to write a much better teaching statement!” “Incredibly valuable and highly engaging workshop. I will certainly try to attend another in the future.” * Sponsored by the Exoplanet Exploration Program The Center for Astronomy Education (CAE) is devoted to improving teaching and learning in Astro 101. The goal is to increase the pedagogical content knowledge of Astro 101 instructors and improve implementation of curricula and assessment materials. The program also conducts fundamental research on student beliefs and reasoning difficulties related to astronomy, and instructor implementation difficulties related to teaching astronomy. Activities related to NASA exoplanet exploration and other astrophysics science are incorporated into the workshops.

PlanetQuest Website Incorporates Interactive Timeline “Highly informative, beautiful to look at and a fine use of the timeline tool to display history graphically.” –RSC NewsFeed “NASA has hundreds of great online tools for the classroom, their Interactive Timeline is the one of the most impressive.” – iLearn Technology "A great resource" – Kirk Robbins, Science for All A multimedia history of the search for new worlds Updated as major exoplanet discoveries occur

E/PO Highlight: James Webb Space Telescope at the World Science Festival The Webb Telescope full-scale model was on display at the World Science Festival in New York City’s Battery Park June 1-8. Thousands of visitors—many of them classroom students and teachers—visited the model and the nearby ‘Ask a Scientist’ booth. There were also activity tents with interactive displays and activities including JWST Legos, space trivia, children’s activity books, an infrared camera, and a model of the Ariane launch vehicle. Media event with Lori Garver, John Mather, Brian Green, John Grunsfeld Covered by NYTimes, WSJ, NY Daily News, NPR, local TV Star party with Neil deGrasse Tyson, John Grunsfeld, John Mather, Miles O’Brien, Heidi Hammel

by Stats: Launched May 11, million craters / areas of interest annotated as of June 7, 2010 Averaging 5,000+ users per day − Over 20,000 participants so far! Overview: The Moon Zoo citizen science project (moonzoo.org) directly engages the public in identifying geological (& sometimes technological) features on the Moon. With just a few clicks, users can mark craters, linear features, and even left-behind lunar landers. This science task, which is geared at answering specific questions, is embedded in an environment designed to encourage learning and collaboration. On the main Moon Zoo site users can explore educational content, including video tutorials, articles, glossary terms, and flash interactive activities. Additionally, there is a blog and a forum to encourage collaboration and social learning, and a twitter feed for general communications. Together, this suite of software facilitates Moon Zoo users in contributing to science while learning about the Moon and geology. Crater Survey Educational Content Educational Content Not Shown: Blogs, Forums, Twitter, Facebook Not Shown: Blogs, Forums, Twitter, Facebook Boulder Wars Submitted by Pamela L. Gay. This work is supported by ROSES EPOESS grant NX09AD34GS0.