Rose Finn received a two-year Space Grant Fellowship, co-sponsored by Steward Observatory.

Rose reports:
My goal when applying for the UA/NASA Space Grant was to get involved with education outreach that focused on teacher training. I feel this is the best way to implement lasting changes since the teacher will be reaching students every day, year after year.

Originally I wanted to organize some sort of workshop for teachers that would emphasize hands-on, astronomy related activities. After talking with several people already working in education at Steward Observatory and NOAO, I discovered that a similar program already exits. The program is called Project ASTRO, and its goal is to form "ongoing partnerships between teachers and astronomers".

As a Project ASTRO participant, I attended a two-day training workshop and met my cooperating teacher (Ron Zwick, Earth Science Teacher, Cholla High School). We have planned a unit on the planets, We also plan to collaborate on other topics and activities that introduce students to the electromagnetic spectrum and infrared astronomy. In addition, we will organize a star party with the aid of the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Club.

Ideally, this year will be used to develop several presentations and activities on the planets. This spring and next year I will be able to visit other schools and work with more teachers.

As part of my Space Grant, I will also work as a counselor for Astronomy Camp. There are several different camps throughout the year for beginning teenagers and adults, advanced teenagers and teachers. Again, the emphasis is learning astronomy by doing astronomy; the campers use the 40 and 60-inch telescopes on Mt. Lemmon and the 61-inch telescope on Mt. Bigelow for introductory observing in the beginning camps and research in the advanced.

Fall 1998 Update:

My goal when applying for the UA/NASA Spacegrant was to get involved with education outreach that focused on teacher training. I feel this is the best way to implement lasting changes since the teacher will be reaching students every day, year after year. As a result, teacher training is the thread that links the various programs and projects I am undertaking for the outreach component of my Spacegrant.

Originally I wanted to organize some sort of workshop for teachers that would emphasize hands-on, astronomy related activities. After talking with several people already working in education at Steward Observatory and NOAO, I discovered that a similar program already exits. The program is called Project ASTRO, and its goal is to form "ongoing partnerships between teachers and astronomers".

Last year as a Project ASTRO participant, myself and Mike Meyer worked with Ron Zwick, an Earth Science Teacher at Cholla High School. We collaborated on a unit on the planets, and activities included a liquid nitrogen presentation on the planets, a scale model of the solar system and an activity on remote sensing and the topology of Venus. I am participating in Project Astro again this year. My new cooperating teacher is Randy Palacio, a 7th grade teacher at Roskruge Middle School. During my first visit we went over the phases of the moon, and I am looking forward to visiting again to do activities on the seasons and Venus.

Over the summer, I worked with Ron Zwick and his students from the Cholla HS Summer Institute. For three weeks, we learned basic astronomy using the internet. Toward the end of the summer session, the students and Ron came to Steward Observatory for a night time observing session with the 21 inch telescope. It was the first time most of them had ever looked through a telescope - we even had some parents come!

As part of my spacegrant, I worked as a counselor for Astronomy Camp. The first camp I participated in was the Advanced Teen Camp, and the following week we had the Astronomy Camp for Educators. Working at the teacher camp was most in line with my spacegrant goal of long-term impact on education. I gave a talk on doing research in the classroom, and a large fraction of the teachers present were interested in trying to implement such a program. I gave them information on how to structure the timeline, set up tables, etc., but they wanted more details and examples. As a result, I am currently putting together some examples of projects my students completed when I was teaching, and I will make these documents available over theweb. I am compiling some web-based activities that teachers can use to introduce their students to research and possible topics to pursue in astronomy. I hope to give this talk again at next summer's Astronomy Camp for Educators, and I will be armed with a packet of explicit materials for implementing a research program into a middle or high school science curriculum.

Finally, during the next year, I will be working with astronomy professor Chris Impey, compiling the results of a survey he has conducted on science literacy. Chris has given this survey to the students in his Introductory Astronomy courses over the last ten years, and I am very interested in seeing what the results tell us about science literacy and secondary education.