This year, the HST Cycle 15 E/PO Grant Program drew 13 proposal submissions, comprised of 23 science programs. Nine proposals were accepted for funding. The ratio of proposals awarded funding compared to the total number of submissions was approximately 2:3.
FUNDED PROGRAMS
- Core Sampling the Universe - An Interactive High-Definition Video
Hsiao-Wen Chen, University of Chicago - Lowell Observatory Navajo-Hopi Astronomy Outreach Program
Will Grundy, Lowell Observatory - The Birth of Stars and Planets: HST as a Bridge to Science for Students, Teachers and the Public
Charles O'Dell, Vanderbilt University - The Ring-Plane Crossing of Uranus: An Opportunity for Communicating Science and Discovery to the Public
Mark Showalter, SETI Institute - A Cluster of Activities on Coma from the Hubble Space Telescope, StarDate, and McDonald Observatory
Shardha Jogee, University of Texas at Austin - Origins of the Elements Museum Visit Guide
Donald York, University of Chicago - The Supernova Club
Dinshaw Balsara, University of Notre Dame - Exploring Light and Planetary Atmospheres Through the Eyes of the Hubble Space Telescope
Gilda Ballester, University of Arizona - My Star: Learning Stellar and Planetary Evolution with Your Own Personal Star System
Dean Hines, Space Science Institute
ABSTRACTS
Core Sampling the Universe - An Interactive High-Definition Video
PI: Hsiao-Wen Chen, University of Chicago
CoI: Jose Francisco Salgado, Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum
Multimedia Development
Budget: $19,999
We are proposing a Multimedia Development program at the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum targeted at an Informal Science audience featuring Professor Hsiao-Wen Chen's Cycle 15 observing program, "Unveiling Starburst Morphology of Distant Damped Lyman-alpha Galaxies Hosting Gamma-Ray Bursts". Our proposal is to create four high-definition video segments that will focus on this novel research program. These segments will be presented through an interactive menu, which will allow museum visitors to "question" Professor Chen about her HST research. “Core Sampling the Universe” will focus on the process of research and the excitement of ongoing discovery, with the goal of inspiring young people to consider STEM careers. By featuring Dr. Chen in the videos, visitors will be presented with a strong female scientist role model. This project builds upon and strengthens a long-term and successful partnership between the University of Chicago and the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum. We will utilize a "focus group" of inner city middle and high school students drawn from the Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics (KICP) Space Explorers Program to help formulate the video segments. The interactive video will form a component of the upcoming "Exploring the Universe Through Maps" exhibit at the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum. This exhibit is in turn part of the larger "Chicago Maps Festival", a city-wide collaboration among Chicago's major cultural institutions. Integrating this video into the larger exhibit and festival creates several synergistic effects. These include: expaneded and more diverse audiences, increased visibility from the festival’s promotional campaign, supportive contextual information, and cost sharing of the exhibit materials and evaluation. “Core Sampling the Universe” will extend beyond Chicago as it will be broadly disseminated: in lower resolution format via free web based video libraries such as Google Video and YouTube, through the distribution of HD DVDs to planetaria, science museums and schools, and via presentations at the ASP, GLPA and other meetings of astronomy educators.
Lowell Observatory Navajo-Hopi Astronomy Outreach Program
PI: Will Grundy, Lowell Observatory
CoI: Kevin Schindler, Lowell Observatory
Outreach, Training and Workshop
Budget: $14,581
The Lowell Observatory Navajo and Hopi Astronomy Outreach Program uses the excitement of astronomy to help stimulate Navajo and Hopi children’s interest in science and, more generally, in education. The program utilizes sustained classroom visits by astronomers during the school year to capture the interest 5th-8th grade students. The partnership with the teachers and the workshop enable the teachers to learn about astronomy and related inquiry-based activities so that they are able to teach astronomy more effectively in their classrooms. Further, the workshop facilitates collaboration between the participating teacher and at least one other teacher in their school, thus leveraging our effort and expanding its impact beyond the teacher with which we work directly. In addition, by encouraging the participation of family and other community members, the project seeks to make science a normal part of the student’s life. An important component of our program is sensitivity to the cultures and world views of the students. We conduct activities in-line with their learning styles, and we collaborate with tribal members versed in the traditional astronomical knowledge to make cultural connections. The goal of Dr. Grundy’s current HST research programs is to understand the orbital and compositional properties of Pluto’s satellites. He will incorporate his HST research and experience into his classroom presentations. This proposal requests funding to support Dr. Grundy’s continued participation in this program in the 2007-2008 school year, as well as support for E/PO Team Members that will work directly with Dr. Grundy.
The Birth of Stars and Planets: HST as a Bridge to Science for Students, Teachers and the Public
PI: Charles O'Dell, Vanderbilt University
CoI: Laurette Cousineau, Independence High School, Williamson County Schools & Sue McPherson, Hendersonville High School
Training/Workshop
Budget: $39,961
Humankind’s inherent interest in the motions of the heavens can constitute a bridge to link the public to multiple disciplines of science. The proposed work combines HST Cycle 15 research on the Orion Nebula with a special astronomical facility, the Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory, to connect astronomy to teachers, students and the public. It refines and continues a successful outreach activity begun under Cycles 12, 13 and 14 that includes teacher workshops and space exploration camps for students. Utilizing input from a senior teacher advisory group linked directly to underserved students, the proposed approach develops new HST-based curriculum that addresses the national, state and local science standards and supplements the basic materials for middle and high school science classes. This curriculum will be tested in teacher workshops and summer camps at the Dyer Observatory to fine tune and implant HST results into the classrooms of Tennessee. The curriculum will be inquiry-based and will utilize a variety of hands-on interactive activities created at the observatory. The goal is to enhance student interest in astronomy as well as to build a longer term student involvement through observing opportunities at Dyer and participation in the new Corps of Explorers science group. The partnership developed with Metro Nashville Public Schools brings the best middle school students in Nashville to the camps using scholarships from the E/PO grant. New HST results will also be presented by the PI and other HST scientists at the workshops, camps and regular public exploration nights at the Dyer Observatory.
The Ring-Plane Crossing of Uranus: An Opportunity for Communicating Science and Discovery to the Public
PI: Mark Showalter, SETI Institute
CoI: Edna DeVore, SETI Institute
Multimedia development, training, and Outreach
Budget: $60,000
The ring-plane crossings and equinox of Uranus 2007 provide an “event” that can engage the public with this icy outer planet: its atmospheric dynamics, moons, rings, seasons and the interactions within the satellite and ring systems. The ring-plane crossings and equinox occur every 42 years and thus provide a discrete event for education and public outreach activities that focus on Uranus. In Cycle 15, three proposals were selected that focus on Uranus: “The Ring Plane Crossings of Uranus in 2007, M Showalter, GO-10870” “Orbital Evolution and Chaos among the Inner Moons of Uranus, M. Showalter, AR-10977” and “ASC Imaging of Uranus’ Atmosphere Near Equinox, L. Sromovsky, GO-10805.” Together, these parent proposals provide the intellectual and scientific foundation for this E/PO proposal. This is a proposal to develop, implement, and evaluate complementary activities: a new ViewSpace production in collaboration with STScI’s Office of Public Outreach that will be disseminated to more than 110 US museums and science centers; a professional development workshop for science journalists one month prior to the equinox in collaboration with LASP at University of Colorado, Boulder; and, a series of teleconference trainings for informal educators through NASA’s Solar System Ambassadors, Solar System Educator Program, Night Sky Network and Museum Alliance. These activities aim to bring NASA-sponsored scientific research to the general public through science centers, museums, planetaria, amateur astronomy clubs, NASA-affiliated volunteers, and to enhance the basic knowledge of science journalists about Uranus with the ring-plane crossings and equinox as the focal events.
A Cluster of Activities on Coma from the Hubble Space Telescope, StarDate, and McDonald Observatory
PI: Shardha Jogee, University of Texas at Austin
CoI: Sandra Preston, McDonald Observatory/University of Texas at Austin
Outreach
Budget: $50,000
This project takes advantage of the public’s excitement about the spectacular panchromatic images and research that come out of the Hubble Space Telescope, and it relies on existing, reliable vehicles to deliver a vast outreach and education program for Coma, the richest cluster of galaxies in the local Universe. The HST ACS Treasury Survey of the Coma Cluster will build a valuable legacy dataset that this EPO program will share with the public. Deliverables include new StarDate and Universo radio programs about HST-based research on the Coma Cluster; Coma HST images produced by STScI for ViewSpace and the Internet; an activity and DVD targeted at 9th-12th grade students; and revised, reprinted and Internet versions of the StarDate/Universo Teacher Guide. All deliverables are disseminated nationally and/or internationally and will reach millions of people and tens of thousands of students. Many will be available in both English and Spanish; and, those for students will align with National Standards for Science Education. Formative and summative evaluation is performed, and the proposal is leveraged with dollar-for-dollar cost-sharing from the University of Texas at Austin.
Origins of the Elements Museum Visit Guide
PI: Donald York, University of Chicago
CoI: Greg Lopatka, Retired, Chicago Public Schools
Curriculum Development
Budget: $19,996
The Chicago WebDocent Project (CWD) at the University of Chicago proposes a curriculum development project to create a guide complementing CWD’s STScI-funded online curriculum modules on the origins of the elements with visits to the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum. The Origins of the Elements Museum Visit Guide will identify content strands across CWD’s 4 origins modules for middle-school students and create 3-5 thematic museum visit plans based on the strands (for example, scientific instruments, spectroscopy, or stars). The primary audiences are teachers in the Chicago Public Schools and their students; however, secondary audiences include teachers from districts outside of Chicago as well as parents. The Guide will help teachers link classroom learning with a museum visit through use of an itinerary that frames learning goals first explored at school. The printable itinerary will present guiding questions that are intended to be used by students in the museum to activate prior learning and integrate exhibit content into knowledge structures. The strands will also include post-visit feedback activities and assessments that offer both quantitative and qualitative tasks requiring students to apply knowledge gained from reflection and critical analysis of the guiding questions to new hypotheses. The Guide will be an online resource available on CWD’s Origins of the Elements website, which will be created to consolidate all of our origins materials, including new strands identified for the Guide.
The Supernova Club
PI: Dinshaw Balsara, University of Notre Dame
CoI: Rebecca Pettit, University of Notre Dame
Community Summer and After School Program
Budget: $60,000
The Supernova Club is a community-based, after-school club for high potential underserved/underutilized middle school youths in South Bend, Indiana. The club will be formed through a two-phase process melding the contents of three HST Cycle 15 research proposals, each on various aspects of supernovae, with the resources of two major Notre Dame community outreach programs. In Phase 1 (Summer 2007), we will instill a science program, rooted in the story of supernovae, into the National Youth Sports Program (NYSP) at Notre Dame. NYSP brings 250 youths, recruited from highly disadvantaged areas of South Bend, to the Notre Dame campus for a 4-week summer program that blends nutrition, physical fitness, and academic study. The science program will be aimed at engaging the youths in space science, and selecting from them a small cadre of high interest/high potential youths to become members of the Supernova Club. In Phase 2 (Academic 2007-2008), the club members will meet weekly at the Robinson Community Learning Center (RCLC), established by Notre Dame in South Bend’s low-income Northeast Neighborhood. There we will provide a variety of space science activities aimed at further stimulating interests, supplementing the middle school space science curriculum, and offering a deeper understanding of the roles of supernova in nucleosynthesis and as standard candles. Our hope is that, through these activities, we can educate a small cadre of high potential, predominately minority youths in a way that leads at least a few of them towards careers in space science or other STEM areas.
Exploring Light and Planetary Atmospheres Through the Eyes of the Hubble Space Telescope
PI: Gilda Ballester, University of Arizona
CoI: Don McCarthy, University of Arizona
Training/Workshop
Budget: $20,000
The discovery over the past decade of over 100 planets orbiting stars other than our Sun has revolutionized the field of studies of extrasolar planets. Most discoveries have been made by measuring the variable Doppler shift of the parent star spectrum caused by the gravitational pull of the planet as it orbits around the star. Another method of study has been provided by planets with orbits inclined so that the planet transits in front of the star. When these planets cross the stellar disk they obscure part of it according to their sizes, and this has shown that these planets are giant Jupiter-size type planets. HST was the first telescope to detect additional obscuration during the transits, at certain wavelengths, providing the first detection of the atmosphere of an extrasolar planet. The transiting planets discovered so far are called "hot-Jupiters" because they are very close to their parent stars, just about 10 stellar radii away. One key HST finding has been that the upper atmosphere of the best studied "hot-Jupiter" is highly inflated and undergoes strong escape, somewhat like gases escape in a comet, but quite different than in the atmospheres of the planets of our Solar System. New HST observations of another "hot-Jupiter" are underway which will provide new information for our understanding of these systems. In this educational workshop teachers will be taught about: light; how light is used with telescopes such as HST to study remote objects; the nature of planetary atmospheres, their gases, escape and light transmission; the discovery methods and formation of extrasolar planets; spectroscopy; star types; and, the HST spectroscopic transit observations of extrasolar planets and related discoveries.
MyStar: Learning Stellar and Planetary Evolution with your own Personal Star System
PI: Dean Hines, Space Science Institute
CoI: James Harold, Space Science Institute
Multimedia Development
Budget: $60,000
The proposed work will focus on the development of MyStar: an online, multi-user stellar and planetary evolution interactive, accompanied by interactive training materials for both museum docents and teachers who wish to use the activity in the classroom. Visitors to the MyStar site will be able to form their own star, then observe and study it as it evolves. Over the course of a month or more, visitors will receive email or text message prompts as their star and accompanying planetary system enter new phases. Simultaneously, the star’s home page will illustrate the star’s current state with HST imagery, and describe how scientists are learning more about this point in a star’s life. In order to make the most effective use of the program funds and provide the widest possible dissemination, we will partner with the Space Science Institute’s Alien Earths education program. The materials will become part of the Alien Earths Online Web site, and the Alien Earths project will provide additional funding for the program. This will provide significant leverage for both development and dissemination, as well as long term support for the project. The MyStar interactive will also be available in a Spanish language version, in order to broaden its reach.
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