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NOAO Educational Outreach Activities (1Jun95)
(from Director's Office, NOAO Newsletter No. 42, June 1995)

With the appointment of a half-time Education Officer, whose charge is to
develop and obtain funding for an educational outreach program, you can
expect the outreach efforts of NOAO to intensify. Our overall educational
outreach plan includes direct classroom involvement, support of educational
technology, and, if funding permits, a new program of summer workshops for
teachers that includes observing time on Kitt Peak. The following activities are
underway in support of K-12 science education:

     o  NOAO will maintain an on-going program of direct involvement in
        local school districts. The specifics depend on the interests of staff
        members (not limited to astronomers) and needs of the schools. We are
        presently gaining experience with the abundance of hands-on-science
        activities for classrooms developed by Project ASTRO and others. Our
        current involvement with an elementary school is funded by a NASA
        IDEA Grant.

     o  In coordination with school teachers and college professors, we have
        submitted a preliminary proposal to the NSF Teacher Enhancement
        Program to fund a series of summer workshops for middle and high
        school science teachers. We offer teachers a research experience of
        observing with KPNO facilities and a mechanism for their students to
        obtain further observations for classroom research projects. The
        summer workshops would begin in 1997 and include enriched
        background instruction in astronomical concepts and observational
        techniques, instruction in the use of image processing and educational
        technology tools, and some hands-on resources for teaching science.

     o  We propose that the extensive computer facilities of NOAO be used as
        an electronic home base for the astronomy and science education
        community. One way in which we can support the expansion of
        electronic tools such as the Internet and World Wide Web is by
        making worthwhile information available through these means. The
        role of NOAO in electronically disseminating high quality science
        education materials will be discussed at the Astronomy Education
        Symposium at the ASP meeting in College Park, MD, this June.

Your comments on these initiatives are welcomed. Please send e-mail to
sjacoby@noao.edu or talk with me at the ASP meeting. We will continue to
inform you about the educational outreach activities of NOAO through this
Newsletter and the NOAO Educational Outreach page of the World Wide
Web, scheduled to come on-line in mid-June.

Suzanne Jacoby (Education Officer)

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