NOAO Educational Outreach

The NOAO Educational Outreach Department is responsible for information requests, scientific media relations, and educational outreach programs. As summer approaches, our pace shifts from busy to hectic as we prepare for the arrival of teacher and undergraduate participants in our educational outreach programs.

Our NSF-funded Teacher Enhancement Program, The Use of Astronomy in Research Based Science Education (RBSE), has accepted another sixteen teachers into this summer's program. We are again looking for astronomers from around the country to serve as mentors to these teachers when they return to their home schools to implement the RBSE program. Teachers have been accepted from the following locations; please contact Suzanne Jacoby (sjacoby@noao.edu) if you live near these locations and would like information about becoming a mentor.

      Traverse City, MI       Strongsville, OH
      Cranston, RI            Woodbridge, NJ
      Tucson, AZ              Midland, TX
      Fort Benning, GA        Union, KY
      Pinson, AL              Philadelphia, PA
      Rio Piedras, PR         Evans, GA
      Southlake, TX           San Antonio, TX
      Wall, TX

NOAO Outreach also offers a gateway to the Southwestern Consortium of Observatories for Public Education (SCOPE). SCOPE is a consortium of seven observatories located in the southwest: the National Solar Observatory/Sacramento Peak, Apache Point Observatory, McDonald Observatory, Very Large Array/National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Whipple Observatory, Lowell Observatory, and Kitt Peak National Observatory. Collectively, SCOPE sites host more than 500,000 visitors annually and reach more than 4,000 teachers through workshops. McDonald's StarDate/Universo reaches a radio audience of 8.7 million listeners weekly. SCOPE meets three times a year to discuss and support efforts at members' individual institutions and encourages astronomy researchers to use the expertise and infrastructure in the group to develop effective E/PO proposals. Learn more about SCOPE at http://www.as.utexas.edu/mcdonald/scope/scope.html

Eight undergraduates will participate in the Kitt Peak REU program this summer; the National Solar Observatory will host seven students as well, four in Tucson and three at Sacramento Peak. For the first time, supplements were available from the NSF to support teachers' participation in the REU program. NOAO/Tucson will have three teachers, graduates of last year's RBSE program, returning to Tucson to work with staff astronomers Nigel Sharp, Caty Pilachowski, and Travis Rector.

Our recently redesigned web pages have a new look and more information about NOAO outreach activities--check them out at http://www.noao.edu/outreach/.

Suzanne Jacoby