NOAO Office of Public Affairs and Educational Outreach

National Association for Interpretation workshop report

I recently returned from an extensive certification workshop from the National Association for Interpretation, which taught attendees how to develop an interpretative master plan for an entire facility.

This workshop was an intense week-long program which broke the group down into five different teams that were dropped off and directed to take a critical look at a real-life visitor center.

The teams, made up of people from all over the US, came up with five very different interpretative master plans for this center, which were presented at the last day of the workshop. This interesting training will enable us to develop our own interpretative master plan for Kitt Peak, which will include major goals and objectives, the “message” we want visitors to leave with, and related issues such as the content of exhibits (inside and out), tours and mountain signage.

We’d be interested to hear about any recent efforts to develop a similar interpretive plan for an astronomy or space science facility.

Posted by Rich Fedele in: Public Outreach

From the 2006 NSTA Meeting in Anaheim

Part 2 - “The Return from NSTA”

Well, I made it back from the National Science Teachers Association meeting in Anaheim late on Saturday afternoon. I was so tired at the airport that I didn’t notice until the last minute that I could make an earlier flight, since LA traffic was light and the airport van arrived early. I made the earlier flight going standby, though my luggage did not.

Speaking of luggage, I had to take mine in to be repaired on Monday. It is a time-honored tradition to take home as many resources as possible from the NSTA exhibit floor to share with teachers back home, and my luggage suffered as usual. Now I have to figure out a way to get these materials out of my office and to the teachers that I collected them for. I already have two boxes of educational materials in my office from before the meeting to send to teachers in Chile and Singapore who are doing special astronomy programs.

The NSTA meeting ended well, with our last session (of five) addressing the Spitzer-TLRBSE teacher and student research program on Saturday. Three teachers who do research presented results from their projects and their work was very impressive. Our turnout was less than our other workshops, and our room for this presentation was a very large ballroom, for some reason. It turned out that we were competing with an Earth science “share-a-thon” and Bill Nye “The Science Guy,” as well as a conference trip to Disneyland.

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Posted by Steve Pompea in: Public Outreach

From the 2006 NSTA Meeting in Anaheim

Day 1 – Thursday

The National Science Teachers Association meeting generally starts the minute you get off the plane (if not before!) While waiting for my luggage at the airport, I immediately spotted a group of three science teachers who had flown on the same flight from Tucson. They were easy to spot—young, excited to be at their first national conference, and had that agile look that comes from wrestling with young minds.

The three women told me that they came from the same private school in Tucson and taught science from preschool to 5th grade. Our conversation began with problem solving—we needed to get to Anaheim from LAX, a distance purported to be over 40 miles. The conference information had alluded to several ways one might get to the hotels, but it wasn’t quite clear what the best (or cheapest) way might be. I told them about the Disneyland bus that goes right to the conference hotels, but comes only on the hour. They had some information about shuttle vans. We decided on the van, since it was getting late and cold, and the bus, if it existed, wouldn’t be coming for a while. In the van we met another science teacher from Boston. On the way to the conference hotels, we caught up on the usual topics: school testing, teaching young kids, how hard teaching is today, and how we became teachers. As is often the case, one teacher’s father was a teacher, principal, and then superintendent of a school.

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Posted by Steve Pompea in: Public Outreach

Fun Fest 2006

A half-dozen members of the NOAO outreach office and an equal number of much- appreciated volunteers banded together this Wednesday-Friday to host three booths at the 4th annual “Funfest” at the Tucson Convention Center, sponsored by Southern Arizona Regional Science and Engineering Fair (SARSEF).

The mayhem inherent in dozens of loosely controlled groups of teachers and students roaming a vast cement-floored exhibit hall, all seeking a few moments of science-related diversion before their buses depart, is probably familiar to anyone who works in public outreach. But the scene never fails to both energize and exhaust.

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Posted by Doug Isbell in: Public Outreach