HR: 1340h
AN: ED23B-1283    [Abstracts]
TI: To the Planets, Comets, and Beyond: A Vision of Sustained Collaboration
AU: * Gaboardi, M
EM: gaboardi@gly.fsu.edu
AF: Department of Geological Sciences and National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Florida State University, 1800 E. Paul Dirac Drive, Tallahassee, FL 32310, United States
AU: Grauer, M
EM: marcy.grauer@gmail.com
AF: Ruediger Elementary School, 526 W. 10th Street, Tallahassee, Fl 32304, United States
AU: Humayun, M
EM: humayun@magnet.fsu.edu
AF: Department of Geological Sciences and National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Florida State University, 1800 E. Paul Dirac Drive, Tallahassee, FL 32310, United States
AU: Dixon, P
EM: pdixon@magnet.fsu.edu
AF: Center for Integrating Research and Learning, National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Florida State University, 1800 E. Paul Dirac Drive, Tallahassee, FL 32310, United States
AB: Our NASA-funded, E/PO partnership, the Student-Teacher Astronomy Resource (STAR) Program, has been successful in integrating current space science knowledge, scientific inquiry, and educational practices. With our focus on the recent NASA Stardust Mission, we engage teachers, students, and the general public in timely, research-based inquiry into space science. One such component of our program is "The Solar System: To the Planets, Comets, and Beyond," a new curricula that is accessible to, and comfortable for, primary educators, many of whom were previously uncomfortable teaching space science. This achievement is the result of ongoing collaboration between a formal primary educator (Grauer), the director of educational outreach for the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (Dixon), a cosmochemist (Humayun) and a graduate student (Gaboardi), both researchers in the geochemistry program within the NHMFL. Indicators of success in our outreach program include the following: 1- Increased public awareness of research as evidenced by local television, newspaper, and radio coverage, 2- Requests from individual teachers, schools, and school districts for workshops specific to our program, 3- Overwhelmingly positive formal and informal responses from teachers, students, and parents participating in our program, 4- Requests from high-school students for advice involving science fair projects, 5- High level of performance of Grauer's primary students in space science curricula developed as a result of collaboration, and 6- Integration of a space science component into the sustained outreach program provided by the NHMFL. We are currently collecting formal questionnaires from teachers who have participated in our 2007 workshops to explore the following further indicators of success: 1- teachers' use of our curricula, 2- teachers' comfort levels in teaching space science both before and after attending our workshop, and 3- teachers' evaluation of their own space science content knowledge before and after attending our workshop. Based on formal responses from the 2006 cohort, and informal responses from the 2007 cohort, we expect evaluations to be strongly positive.
UR: http://www.magnet.fsu.edu/education/teachers/resources/stars.html
DE: 0805 Elementary and secondary education
DE: 0815 Informal education
DE: 0830 Teacher training
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting