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R. Danner, R. Hines (JPL, California Institute of Technology)
Are there habitable planets around other stars than the Sun? This is one of the fundamental questions NASA's Origins program aims to answer. At the threshold of the new millennium optical and infrared interferometry, a technique to combine light from separate telescopes as if they were pieces of one much larger telescope, promises to bring within reach a scientific answer to this question.
Simply posing such an intriguing question, let alone considering the impact a scientific answer might have, generally captures the imagination of students instantly. But how can we build on this excitement to create new learning opportunities and to enrich current curricula in the sciences, mathematics and other subjects?
Our poster presents an overview of the outreach projects of NASA's Origins Program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. We will showcase some of our recent products such as a set of classroom activities targeted at middle school math students, the "Origins Explorers" a cartoon guide to interferometry and our long-time favorite pocket interferometer. We will also illustrate our overall approach to educational outreach that is firmly rooted in the national science education standards and the commitment to be responsive to the needs of the educational community.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://origins.jpl.nasa.gov. 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.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: rudolf.danner@jpl.nasa.gov