Descriptions of E&O Presentations
Tom Bowles:
"Using NUSL to Educate the Public about Radioactivity"
From the inception of our plans to construct an ultra low-level counting facility
(LLCF) at NUSL, we have planned to construct an underground classroom adjacent
to the LLCF. This would be set up to enable hands-on demonstration of the types
and effects of radioactivity, and to present the needs and techniques required
at NUSL to achieve ultra-low background levels. Our presenters would go on to
discuss the physics experiments being carried out at NUSL. An important part
of the planned presentation is how radiation concerns affect the nation's security
- both in our ability to provide nuclear power as well as counter-terrorism
efforts. Finally, people would be able to view activities going on throughout
the 3 levels of the LLCF (from a separate viewing area) before going on to visit
the experimental halls.
Len Bugel:
On the Value of Research Experiences for High School Teachers
For my presentation, I will talk about how experiments can benefit by adding
high school teachers (and even students) to their collaboration. This will be
based on the experience of myself and many other teachers, and a few students,
on two experiments at Fermilab. I will discuss both the benefit to the experiment
and to the teacher.
Willi Chinowsky: The HANDS-ON UNIVERSE Model
The Hands-On Universe (HOU) educational
program is a student-centered research and curriculum development program based
at the Lawrence Hall of Science of the University of California at Berkeley.
The fundamental premise of HOU is that, provided with proper support text materials
and tools, students best learn and appreciate science by engaging in open-ended
exploration of appropriate aspects of real research, with real data. A potentially
rich learning experience replaces the deadening "cookbook" formulaic
science education that assaults most students today. HOU enables secondary level
students to investigate the Universe with tools and concepts from physical science,
mathematics, and technology. Since 1992, with support from the National Science
Foundation, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy, HOU has
developed and pilot tested an educational program that enables high school students
to request their own observations from professional observatories. Using the
Internet, HOU participants around the world request observations from telescopes,
download images from a large image archive maintained at a www site. Students
and teachers analyze the data with the aid of user-friendly image processing
software in a curriculum. HOU integrates many of the science and math topics
and skills outlined in national standards into open- ended astronomical investigations.
" HOU is also developing activities and tools for middle school students
and products for informal science education centers.
" HOU materials can be found in more than 500 classrooms in regional high
school networks across the world, including U.S. Department of Defense Dependent
Schools. " HOU is a collaboration of Lawrence Hall of Science, TERC Inc.
(Cambridge, Massachusetts), Adler Planetarium (Chicago), and Yerkes Observatory
(Williams Bay, Wisconsin), as well as a worldwide network of educators and astronomers.
" The HOU concept and procedures may be adapted and extended profitably
to experimental science other than observational astronomy. The cache of generally
useful teaching tools that already exists would need to be expanded with other
materials specific to a particular project. For example, software would be needed
to access and characterise archived data from the AMANDA and/or IceCube neutrino
detector array at the South Pole to allow a measurement of cosmic-ray muon flux
at the earth.
Jodi Cooley: NSF's GK-12 program
This talk briefly introduces the
NSF's Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education
(K-12) Program, and then focuses in on a particular project within that program,
the Kindergarten Through Infinity at UW-Madison. It then describes a team within
this program that involved AMANDA graduate students and presents one of these
students' assessment of the strengths and weaknesses associated with participating
in this team.
Cynthia
Crockett: On MIT's Teacher Professional Development Program
I will give a brief presentation on one particular model of education outreach
involving a major university partnership for the purposes of supporting classroom
teachers of science, mathematics, technology, and providing research experiences
and internships for teachers. This approach is part of the proven outreach program
that has been in existence at MIT since 1989. We have reached upward of 700+
teachers on both a national and international scale.
Ali Fazely: Involving Students in High Energy Astrophysics Experiments
I report our activities at Southern University in research and education for the past few years. We are involved in a high-energy astrophysics balloon-borne experiment - ATIC, and a neutrino experiment - LSND, now completed at Los Alamos. In both these experiments, our students from Physics, Computer Science and Engineering were involved in hardware, software and actual data analysis. We have had four M.Sc. theses completed from these two programs. Most notably, our first MS recipient (1998) wrote his MS thesis on the LSND experiment. In my talk, I will elaborate on the physics of these experiments and now both graduate and undergraduate students participate in them.
Andrew Finn, Kiril Datchev, and Melanie Novak: Part of a larger whole: Undergraduate research participation at Fermilab
The hands-on, one-on-one nature of research participation has long been recognized as an important component of undergraduate science education. Some have hesitated about college students working on large multi-institution experiments, fearing that students would "get lost" or end up simply doing "scut" work. Experience on the NuTeV and BooNE collaborations at Fermilab has shown, though, that if the experience is planned well, executed thoughtfully, and supervised appropriately, student research as part of a large collaborative enterprise can be very productive and meaningful for the student, and yield surprising payoffs to the experiment as well -- giving graduate students experience in teaching, supervising, and mentoring, for example. Melanie Novak from Bucknell University, Kiril Datchev from Columbia, and Andrew Finn from the College of the Holy Cross will discuss their experiences working at Fermilab, and what components put in place by the collaborations helped make those experiences a success.
Jim Madsen
The NSF-supported Teachers Experiencing Antarctica and the Arctic (TEA) program
annually pairs 12 to 16 K-12 teachers with scientists who are conducting research
in the polar regions. The goal of the TEA program is to integrate the teachers
into the field experience so that they can obtain hands-on experience with cutting-edge
science in an extreme environment. I will discuss the contributions the TEA
teachers are making to the AMANDA project, how the AMANDA project integrates
TEA into both its science and Education and Outreach goals, and how the IceCube
project anticipates expanding on the work with the TEA program that we began
with AMANDA.
Marvin Marshak
I will give a short talk on our experiences with outreach activities at the
Soudan Underground Laboratory. In cooperation with the Minnesota State Parks,
we hosted more than 5,000 people this summer. We also did a live, 2-hour presentation
on Minnesota public radio that I mentioned to you earlier and have an "elderhostel-type"
short course scheduled through University extension. We are also reaching out
to a different community through the MINOS mural project (see the April 2002
issue of the CERN Courier).
Susan Millar, Ken Heller, and Paul Nienaber: "Setting Our Goals: Getting beyond the 'collection of neat stuff' syndrome
Most scientists want to communicate the excitement of their work and the entire scientific process. Many are also dismayed by the level of science education in the country. Is it practical to build the issues of education and outreach into the priorities of a major scientific research facility? As with the science, the most important step is to frame the questions. This talk will present a starting point on which to begin the discussion to define the questions. Subsequent presentations will allow this group to examine past experiences and use them to arrive at possible realistic solutions.
A desirable outcome of this meeting is to arrive at a set of limited, achievable goals for outreach and education that are commensurate with:
· the scientific enterprise
of a remote research facility
· the capabilities, experience, and resources of the scientists who work
there, and
· the needs and interests of the targeted population for outreach and
educational activities.
The goals and strategies must also include techniques for accessing whether or not they are achieved.
Eric Muhs: WALTA : Washington Area Large-scale Time Coincidence Array : A school-based cosmic ray detector network.
Although the origin of the highest energy charged particles arriving at the Earth remains mysterious, new types of widely dispersed detector arrays are on the verge of providing much more detailed information about these rare visitors. Modern communications, including internet and local GPS time stamping, make possible the construction of a relatively inexpensive and sufficiently accurate detector network which can make significant observations about the "footprint" of secondary particles in the air showers created by the incoming primaries.
I will describe a partnership with local secondary schools, teachers, and students-a grassroots effort to build a cosmic ray detector network is underway at multiple sites across North America. WALTA is one such site, in Seattle, Washington, where the idea developed in the fall of 2000, and we've now involved 20 teachers and over 100 high school students in building, testing, and maintaining detectors, and building a "learning community" as well. So far, WALTA and its partner efforts: CROP in Nebraska, CHICOS in Los Angeles, ALTA in Alberta, have made some progress. I will discuss some of the successes, goals, and challenges we've encountered.
Paul Nienaber: "Professional Development Issues for Four-Year College Teachers: Not Just Tenure"
This presentation will consider some
"trans-motherhood-and-apple-pie" questions for faculty in non-Ph.D.-granting
departments: developing skills as a mentor; learning how to connect students
to a profession, not just a discipline (networking); dealing with the "you're
not on campus" response in the department and the "you're here for
three months" response at the lab; expanding teaching repertories (more
than just advanced labs). Work done on the proposed "CoURSE" (Consortium
on Undergraduate Research in Science and Education) program developed by working
group participants Koutsoliotas, Smith, and Nienaber will be discussed.
Susan M. Pfiffner and Kimberly L. Davis: U.S./South African Undergraduate Education and Research Workshops
In our talk, we describe a workshop that enables minority undergraduate students a unique opportunity for research investigating geochemical and microbial processes in deep subsurface environments of South African mines. This venture was an outgrowth of ongoing research through the NSF Life in Extreme Environment Program for the Witswatersrand Deep Microbiology Project. The workshop provided hands-on field and laboratory experiences for minority undergraduate students within the United States (U.S.) and South Africa (S.A.) in the fields of Earth and Biological Sciences and Environmental Sciences and Engineering. The workshop goals were to recruit and engage undergraduate students in unique and exciting research not normally available to them by offering state-of-the-art experimental opportunities on specific scientific topics through interaction with faculty and to foster a science and technology collaboration between the South African and U.S. communities through the development of an undergraduate research experience workshop. We demonstrated that (1) a workshop with underground activities involving students from both nations was feasible, (2) students could work while being immersed in a cultural, scientific and interdisciplinary atmosphere that relied on teamwork, (3) there was a positive impact on underrepresented minority students, and (4) scientific, educational, and technological collaborations were fostered among South African mines, U.S. and S.A. universities, government and industry.
Jim Madsen: "Astronomy in the Ice" Course
This talk very briefly presents the
"Astronomy in the Ice" course for secondary school teachers. This
8-day course introduces teachers to the science of the AMANDA (Antarctic Muon
And Neutrino Detector Array) and IceCube. The course is designed to provide
teachers enabling background in neutrino science and the classroom resources
needed to understand the design, operation and science potential of AMANDA,
IceCube and similar projects. In addition to describing the course goals and
strategies, Madsen will provide a quick glimpse at evaluation findings, and
describe plans for building on and expanding this very successful course.
William Roggenthen, Dept. of Geology and Geological Engineering, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SD.
The Black Hills Science Teaching Project (BLAHST) was initiated in 1999 as a cooperative project involving eight school districts distributed over a wide area in western South Dakota. The project is a collaboration of the Black Hills State University, the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, and the participating school districts. NSF and the districts provide funding for the project. This local system change initiative, which will extend through 2005, is designed to improve the teaching of science in grades K-8 through hands-on, research-based, inquiry-oriented science units. The funding level on the part of the school districts and the enthusiasm of the K-8 science teachers demonstrate the commitment to science education in this area of the U.S. The project provides a significant amount of science-related professional development. Since June 1999, the project has provided 99 workshops, ranging from one-day workshops through weeklong science experiences. Workshop topics have included earth sciences, biology, astronomy, chemistry, and physics.
Steve
Stevenoski: "TEALive"
TEALive is a joint project between the TEA program, NSF and Wisconsin Rapids
Public Schools. The purpose of TEALive is to connect students and teachers in
real time with researchers in the Arctic and Antarctic. It uses streaming audio
and video across the Internet to link 100 simultaneous users into an online
science conference. Each conference lasts approximately 30 minutes. It begins
with a prepared slide presentation and discussion of the research, and concludes
with questions from the conference audience. The researchers who participate
in a conference are connected to a base classroom of students who are able to
address their questions directly to the researcher. Students participating in
the conference over the Internet are able to hear the researcher, the base classroom
and the conference coordinator and see the slides prepared by the researcher.
During the session, the coordinator receives email questions from participating
students and asks the researcher these emailed questions.