News from
and for HOU Teachers
- Harlan Devore:
- July 11, 2005. Teachers
and Students Visit Spitzer Science Center. by Linda Vu, Spitzer Science
Center. Smiling, Spitzer Staff Scientist Dr. Ranga-Ram Chary silently
watched as 17-year old Katie Mills explained a complex plot of spikes
and dips to Pasadena Star News reporter Kimm Groshong. Ironically, just
two days before this interview, upon her arrival at the Spitzer Science
Center (SSC), the North Carolina teen worried that she wasn't "smart
enough to do Dr. Chary's job." Mills was one of seven SSC guests,
visiting the week of June 27. The group of three science teachers and
four students are participants of the Spitzer Space Telescope Research
Program for Teachers and Students, which granted 12 educators the use
of three and a half hours of Spitzer observing time for educational observations.
...Under the guidance of Dr. Chary, Cape Fear High School Astronomy Teacher
and project team leader Harlan Devore proposed using Spitzer's Infrared
Spectrometer to study the geometry, composition, and physical properties
of dust surrounding the supermassive black hole in Arp102B, a galaxy located
in the constellation Hercules. "Because we can't actually see inside
the black hole, we hope to learn more about its energy source by studying
the dust that is about to go inside it," said Devore. "We [students]
want to learn all we can learn from this experience," added Mills.
...the teachers were originally only given two hours of Spitzer observation
time. However, because SSC Director Dr. Thomas Soifer found the proposals
so impressive upon review, all six projects were accepted and the observation
time was extended to three and a half hours. ... astronomy teacher Devore,...
will use Spitzer's data in his "universe analysis" unit, which
includes identifying stars based on absorption lines in their spectra.
According to Devore, this visit to the SSC marks just the beginning of
the data analysis process. "We will be analyzing this data for a
good part of the next school year," said Devore.
- Jan Engsedt:
- Jeff Adkins:
- Spring, 2006. Jeff Adkins and students in the Antioch ESPACE Academy
at Deer Valley High School (DVHS) have been involved in a project sponsored
by the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) to observe Active
Galactic Nuclei on the Spitzer Infrared Space Telescope as well as ground
based observations. Students are involved in these observations and data
reductions. The first round of the project is complete and results were
presented at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington,
DC in January 2006. The results are online at http://www.espaceacademy.com
(click on the Spitzer Space Telescope picture). They have been approved
for another observation of a different AGN on the Global Telescope Network
list maintained by Dr. Spear at Sonoma State University. They are welcoming
amateur and professional observations of this target using BVRI filters
or radio telescopes, to accompany their own observations of the target
using school telescopes and remote control telescopes. Contact Jeff Adkins
<astronomyteacher[at]mac.com>
Also DVHA students did pretty well at their county science fair. They
won every award in our division except 1st place, took all 5 scholarships
offered to students from Chevron (a total of $2500 distributed among 5
students), 3 awards from the local astronomical society, and got several
other awards as well. Many thanks to all of the programs from NOAO, the
Spitzer Science Center, HOU, and elsewhere that allowed our students to
succeed. See the ESPACE press release page: http://homepage.mac.com/dvhscience/SpaceAcademy/press.html
- Fall 2004. Jeff, HOU Teacher at Deer Valley HS in Antioch, CA, provides
interesting details on his experience converting FITS images from professional-grade
CCD cameras to FITS images that can be opened by the HOU Image Processing
program. His experience is from work in the Teacher Leaders in Research
Based Science Education (TLRBSE). This article is of special interest
to Mac users. The article is at:
http://homepage.mac.com/dvhscience/SpaceAcademy/Projects/iraf.html
- Kevin McCarron:
- 1999. conducted a small education research study "Testing
Actual Astronomy With Students" to see if doing real astronomy
improves students' understanding of color. This year the students used
the techniques astronomers use to find the star color, a la HOU activity
in Measuring Color to determine the color and temperature of
four stars. He compared exam results from previous years to this year
to test improvements in student's understanding of light and color.
- Lech Mankiewicz:
- Michael Hibbs:
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Wednesday, 07-Jan-2009 16:16:33 PST
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