7.
Amateur Astronomers
The
U.S. has a large population of amateur astronomers, people whose
hobby is astronomical observing or following astronomical developments
in a serious sort of way. I like to divide the amateur community
into three categories: Research-level amateurs are those who have
sophisticated telescopes and detectors, or who carry out serious
observing programs. These amateurs are usually members of such specialized
organizations as the American Association of Variable Star Observers,
Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers, or the International
Amateur-Professional Photoelectric Photometry Group, or they are
working in conjunction with a professional astronomer in their community.
There are probably not more than a few hundred of this group in
our country.
Observing
amateurs are those who have a telescope and regularly take it out
for observing the sky, either for their own amusement or with a
community or school group. These amateurs are frequently members
of some of the more than 200 amateur clubs in the U.S., many of
which are, in turn, members of the umbrella organization called
the Astronomical League. The League currently has a combined membership
of almost 13,000 people. Armchair amateurs, on the other hand, are
those who mainly prefer to read about astronomy and may or may not
do some casual observing from time to time. Some of these amateurs
are members of local clubs, but many are not, and pursue their interest
in astronomy through magazines or books they read, programs they
watch on television, and lecture series they may attend. Some are
members of such national organizations as the Astronomical Society
of the Pacific or the Planetary Society. New converts to this group
these days can come from those browsing the many interesting astronomy
rest-stops on the information superhighway.
Many
members of the three groups are tied together by the two main magazines
for amateurs, Sky & Telescope and Astronomy. Astronomy had a circulation
in 1996 of 170,000, while S&T was at 110,000. Estimates of the total
number of amateurs in the U.S. range from 200,000 to 500,000, often
depending on how exactly you define the term. In any case, this
figure, 40 to 100 times the number of professional astronomers,
represents a tremendous population with potential in astronomy education.
Many
amateurs are already involved in education, by going for occasional
visits to local schools or putting on neighborhood star parties,
where youngsters get their first look through a telescope. The amateur
community organizes a National Astronomy Day each spring, where
they make a special effort to bring telescopes to where people are
and show them the night sky. The Astronomical League has a number
of educational programs and publications, although they are limited
by being purely volunteer efforts with no budget to support them.
But
much more could be done. Many amateurs have time, knowledge, energy,
and enthusiasm, which could much more actively be harnessed in the
service of education. Some professional astronomers and educators
worry that amateurs will tell students erroneous things; but at
the level of a 5th grade class, the physics of quasar energy mechanisms
isn't really a relevant topic. The phases of the Moon, why telescopes
are needed to observe celestial objects, or the joys of hunting
comets are much more appropriate to the reasoning level of the youngsters.
This
was the thought behind Project ASTRO, a pilot program in the early
1990's at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (supported by
the National Science Foundation and NASA): to set up ongoing partnerships
between amateur (and professional) astronomers and 4th to 9th grade
teachers in sites around California. After a training workshop for
the partners, astronomers visited "their" classroom not once, but
at least four times (some went as many as 10 times), and worked
with the teacher to present age-appropriate hands-on classroom and
after-school activities.
We
found that, with proper training, and when they are provided with
a suite of good activities and teaching resources, amateurs (and
professionals) can do an excellent job in helping students get excited
about astronomy and science in general. Project ASTRO has produced
The Universe at Your Fingertips, an 815-page loose-leaf notebook
of exemplary activities, resource lists, and teaching suggestions
that incorporate the best ideas from our project and many others
around the country, which is now in its second printing and is being
used by thousands of scientists and educators around the world.
A How-to Manual for Astronomer-Educator Partnerships and a short
video are also available through the project.
The
pilot program was so successful that NSF has funded the expansion
of the program to nine sites around the country, from Boston to
Seattle. The Clark Foundation is supporting a tenth site in Salt
Lake City. The program also offers training workshops for interested
partners at meetings attended by either professional or amateur
astronomers. Given the limited number of professional astronomers
in the country, however, any expansion of the program will clearly
depend on the active involvement of the amateur community.
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8.
Astronomy Interpretation Community
In
some ways, the interpreters to the public are the most far-reaching
part of the astronomy education community, because they include
the media. It is sobering to remember that one episode of "Unsolved
Mysteries" on television is seen by far more people than all the
students any of us will ever teach during our entire careers.
The
astronomy interpretation community includes editors and reporters
at daily newspapers and magazines, producers and writers on radio
& television, the authors of introductory books on astronomical
topics, the writers of children's books, and the authors of astronomy
software and Web-sites. Let's look at this world briefly:
A.
Magazines
If
you examine a list of the top 100 magazines by circulation, you
do find some rays of hope amidst the gathering darkness of gossip
and entertainment magazines. In 1994, there was one in the top 5
U.S. magazines that regularly features very high quality astronomy
articles: can you guess which magazine that is? It's National Geographic
(with a circulation of about 9.5 million).
In
the top 20, we have Time and Newsweek, both of which have had excellent
physical science reporting, although both are now tending toward
shorter and more superficial articles. The top 30 includes Smithsonian
and the top 40, Popular Science. And one of the largest circulation
periodicals in the country, the Sunday newspaper supplement called
Parade (which is mostly pap), regularly featured wonderful essays
by the late Carl Sagan which extolled the scientific perspective
and debunk popular pseudo-sciences. David Levy (the comet hunter)
has now been hired to continue this series.
In
the category of smaller circulation special interest magazines,
we have a number that do an excellent job of reporting astronomy
to their readers: In addition to Sky & Telescope and Astronomy (which
we have already mentioned), there are Discover, Scientific American,
American Scientist, and Air and Space. Excellent and regular coverage
also appears in the news pages of such magazines as Science, Nature,
or Science News. Plus many of the astronomical and space interest
societies issue their own magazines, such as The Planetary Report
from the Planetary Society, Mercury from the Astronomical Society
of the Pacific, or Ad Astra from the National Space Society. Here,
although specialist occasionally complain about a subtle point being
missed, the reporting is very, very good indeed, and astronomy stands
out among sciences as receiving and offering the best coverage for
readers with a serious interest in the field. Of course such readers
are relatively small in number compared to the population of the
country.
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