1. Educator Ambassadors 2008 Sonoma State University July 28 – August 1

2. Welcome! This is our fourth EA training! EAs have directly reached over 50,000 teachers, students and public in workshops since 2002! Program is recognized in an evaluation report (Schwerin 2007) done for NASA HQ as a “unique aspect/notable approach” for Educator Professional Development. (Copy of report available upon request.)

3. Changes to SSU E/PO You may have noticed a few changes around here since the last training: –We have moved to Schulz (since January 2007) – nice new offices, lots of space! –We have a few new faces Dr. Kevin McLin – GTN Director Kamal Prasad – Science Education Specialist Kevin John – Educational Science Support Assistant Dr. Ellie Galvez-Hard – Diversity Program Coordinator –And one “old face” has returned: Logan Hill – Production Assistant

4. Changes to EA Program Welcome to two new EAs! –Bill Panczner – Walter L. Sickles High School in Tampa, FL – will be funded through NuSTAR mission –Neta Apple - Astronomical Society of Kansas City in Adrian, MO – will join Chris Royce on XMM-Newton Increase in yearly travel allotment to $2000! As of 10/1/07, annual stipend was raised to $3000 for four workshops ($750 each)

5. News from SSU missions GLAST – is launched! June 11, 2008 Swift was rated #1 in the NASA Senior Review (held every 2 years, rates all missions on science/dollar) – it even beat out Chandra and Spitzer, which are Great Observatories! NuSTAR was brought back by NASA HQ and is now in Phase B, and on track for confirmation to become a flight mission with launch in 2011

6. Let’s Get Reacquainted! Please turn to someone you don’t know very well and have a discussion for two minutes Then afterwards, we will go around in a circle and each person will introduce the person they just spoke with, telling us: –The person’s name –What they do and where –What they would like to get out of this week’s training –Something we probably don’t know about this person

7. New SSU Web-based Features Swift Newsletter #9 – July 2008 (and the other 8 of them, if you haven’t seen them) New E/PO group home page – redesigned by Kamal (and Aurore of course) (http://epo.sonoma.edu)http://epo.sonoma.edu New GTN website – entirely reorganized and redone by Kevin McLin (http://gtn.sonoma.edu)http://gtn.sonoma.edu Epo’s Chronicles – Kamal Galactic Doom Space Mystery – Kevin John