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P.B. Dusenbery (Space Science Inst.), S.W. Lee (Univ. Colorado)
The upcoming decade of Mars exploration will provide numerous opportunities for a variety of educational efforts. One of these, MarsQuest, is a travelling exhibition being developed by the Space Science Institute with partial funding from NSF and NASA.
MarsQuest’s Education and Outreach Program will take advantage of the many Mars-related educational resources currently available, as well as those in the planning stages. Materials reflecting the exhibit content will be disseminated to teachers at sites where the exhibit is visiting and via presentations at annual and regional meetings of the National Science Teachers Association, and via a web site containing interactive educational resources.
The goals of the MarsQuest Education Program are to: 1) Make use of the rich educational resources and coincident occurrence of ongoing Mars missions; 2) Captivate broad public interest in Mars exploration and use it to promote scientific literacy; 3) Provide opportunities for teachers, students, and families to connect in real-time to the Mars missions, the people involved, and the science experiments underway; 4) Enhance the overall education experience of the MarsQuest exhibition.
The MarsQuest Education Program is focused on teacher training/enhancement and parental involvement. The main mechanism for teacher enhancement and encouragement of parental participation will be through two education workshops organized by MarsQuest personnel at each host site. The first will target museum staff and "master" K-12 teachers. The second will target local K-12 teachers. The MarsQuest Education Program will also provide museum staff, exhibit liaisons, and astronomy volunteers information on offering one-day workshops designed for family groups.
The MarsQuest project will provide a wide ranging dissemination effort, ultimately reaching an estimated two to three million people during its three-year tour.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://www-ssi.colorado.edu/Outreach/TravSciExhibits/MarsQuest/1.html. This link was provided by the author. When you follow it, you will leave the Web site for this meeting; to return, you should use the Back comand on your browser.