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C.R. Pennypacker (UC Berkeley), Hands-On Universe Collaboration, Yerkes Observatory Team, START Team
Over the past decade, with generous support from Elementary, Secondary and Informal Science Education program of the NSF, Hands-On Universe (HOU), has developed and continues to develop small telescopes, user friendly image-processing software, XML-tools for image request within a telescope network, curricula for secondary schools,, teacher training materials and workshops,. HOU curricula should be published within a year, and we are developing HOU Centers across America and the World, to be on-going and self-sustained sites for teachers to learn how to teach and undertake astronomy in their classrooms. HOU is currently developing museum kiosks for image acquisition and processing in science centers, using an on site robotic telescope, and 0.35 meter telescopes around the world in real time.
Over 700 teachers around the United States and another 700 teachers from around the world have taken HOU workshops, and about 2/3 use it in their classrooms.
A particularly important development is the HOU collaboration with Johns Hopkins University as part of the usage of National Virtual Observatory and SDSS images and data for education. Such data systems are beginning to result in a flood of data, which will soon overwhelm students and teachers, unless we prepare for this onslaught carefully.
HOU has met resonance with other astronomers and educators around the world. Global HOU is thriving, and next years Global HOU meeting will be held at NAOC in Beijing, China.
We seek astronomers at this meeting who would be happy to help coach a few students on a paper, using our Collaboratory system!
If you would like more information about this abstract, please follow the link to http://handsonuniverse.org. 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.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 5
© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.