ASTRO-Tucson News
About ASTRO-Tucson
Project ASTRO forms the core of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory’s highly successful regional educational outreach program. Project ASTRO-Tucson is a flexible program with broad content coverage and great utility for a diverse educational audience. Project ASTRO is aligned with the National Science Education Standards, it appeals to different teaching and learning styles, and it can be adapted for constraints on space, staff, and money at individual schools. It also addresses the scientific process, best practices and pedagogy, student misconceptions, and authentic assessment issues. In Tucson, it has been used successfully with elementary, middle and high school students of different ethnic backgrounds, as well as with handicap-challenged and underserved students. ASTRO-Tucson is one of 13 sites nationally that have collectively reached over 100,000 students with more than 1,000 teacher-astronomer partnerships in the last six years.
The Program’s core element is the partnering of volunteer professional and amateur astronomers with K-12 teachers and community educators who want to enrich their astronomy and science teaching. The partnerships are developed through a training workshop, hands-on activities, effective educational materials, follow-up workshops, continued staff support, and connections to community resources. In turn, the interest generated by Project ASTRO has fostered new programs at NOAO such as Family ASTRO-Tucson, which invites families to evening or weekend family events doing fun astronomy activities together; a Project ASTRO-type program in Chile at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory; and an NSF-sponsored Spanish Language Materials Educational Center.
Project ASTRO emerged at a time when the decreasing numbers of students interested in science and low scores on standardized science tests suggested that science education in the United States had reached a crisis point. A primary goal of Project ASTRO is to get students interested in science and maintain that interest through fun, hands-on activities that teach important concepts in astronomy. The program developed from a series of weekend workshops on teaching astronomy sponsored by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.
In the basic model, Project ASTRO staff organize an initial workshop for the educators and astronomers to meet, exchange information, and learn about Project ASTRO and its goals. The pairing of educators and astronomers is seen as a true partnership, where each professional brings their unique skills to the project. During the nominal two-day workshop, partners are encouraged to get to know one another and the activities included in the text, “Universe at Your Fingertips,” through joint demonstra-tions. This introduction to the material not only helps participants to use the text effectively, but also encourages partners to work together to think about ways they might adapt the activities to their students and their specific skills.
The Astronomical Society of the Pacific, originators of Project ASTRO, recently received funding from the National Science Foundation to have part of the “Universe at Your Fingertips” text translated into Spanish. The translated text, “El Universo a sus Pies,” can be ordered over the Internet.
