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S.S. Limaye (Space Science and Engineering Center, UW-Madison), R.A. Pertzborn (Office of Space Science Education, UW-Madison), B. Emerick (Office of Education Outreach, UW-Madison), J.M. Lattis (Space Astronomy Laboratory, UW-Madison)
The increasing expectation of leading research universities for effective outreach efforts aimed at reaching broader audiences has created the need for flexible programming that reaches geographically distributed and diverse communities. Recently, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has made major strides in addressing the educational needs of the broader community through a new funding initiative under the Wisconsin Idea Program. The Wisconsin Idea is a century old notion vigorously supported by the campus that simply states that the ``Boundaries of the Universities are the boundaries of the state." In the late twentieth century, the ``state" has been replaced with the ``Universe." In 2001, the University of Wisconsin-Madison committed over one million dollars for new outreach initiative to be implemented over a three year period.
One of the newly funded efforts is WINNERSS- Wisconsin Idea National Network for Education and Research in Space Sciences, designed to address the need for outreach and education in earth and space sciences nationally and potentially globally.
WINNERSS addresses key current and future research topics in the space sciences including the origins of the universe, the beginning(s) of life in the universe, and the future habitability of our home planet. These themes originated from new knowledge acquired in the age of space exploration and unify the diverse disciplines of physics, astronomy, astrophysics, geology and geophysics, chemistry, atmospheric science, oceanography, astrobiology - or collectively, the space sciences. WINNERSS will strive to highlight research in these related topics through K-12 Education Programs, Programs for Students and Informal Science Education programming.
WINNERSS is a collaborative effort between the Office of Space Science Education (OSSE) of the Space Science and Engineering Center (Graduate School), Department of Astronomy (College of Letters and Science), the Center for Sustainability And Global Environment Program (SAGE, Institute for Environmental Studies), the Office of Education Outreach (School of Education) and the Wisconsin Alumni Association (WAA), and is made possible by support from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to www.ssec.wisc.edu/outreach. 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: planets@ssec.wisc.edu