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Mercury, November/December 2002 Table of Contents

Courtesy of Louis A. Mayo

Community Involvement

Beyond the boundaries of the school is a large resource reserve within the community that is often untapped. Observatories, amateur astronomy meetings, star parties, museums, planetariums, science centers, and research centers are likely to be somewhere near your school. Field trips to such places can be an exciting addition to your astronomy club agenda and provide opportunities for learning difficult to achieve in the classroom. Partnerships with some of these groups can even involve teacher training programs and can form the basis for grant submissions. Before you begin your club, you should make a list of these resources and have an idea of how you might use them during the year.

Local professional and amateur astronomers, or planetarium or science center directors, may even be willing to come speak to your club. Inviting a guest speaker to one of your sessions can be a welcome change of pace.

Local businesses are often looking for volunteer activities and opportunities for philanthropy. Donations to local school science programs can be an attractive vehicle for such programs. If you are looking for donations to your astronomy club, try contacting local research and development firms specializing in space, Earth, or related physical sciences.

It may also be possible to reach out to boy/girl scouts or other such community organizations that have established programs. This can be a very effective way to leverage the impact of your club on the greater community. You might, for example, invite a scout troop to your observing sessions.

Training

The communication of science to the public, teachers, and students contains a number of elements and processes that may not be intuitive to even the most savvy space researcher. For example, children under the age of about 6 can rarely conceptualize the idea of living on a spherical planet and not falling off. The teaching model I presented in the magazine article was the result of years of research trying different approaches to ensuring the greatest degree of memory retention and creative and critical thinking development. In fact, most of the ideas I presented, from how to work with teachers to why it's important to align your club activities with state curriculum standards, is basically foreign material to most astronomers, but they're important in achieving the greatest impact for your efforts.

Believe it or not, there are resources to help scientists learn how to be more effective in science education classroom environments, and you don't have to enroll in an education degree program to take advantage of them. One of the most valuable to me has been the Space Science Institute "Workshops on K-12 Education for Scientists & Engineers" (www.spacescience.org/Education/ResourcesForScientists/Workshops/1.html). This three-day workshop, normally held in Boulder Colorado, speaks directly to astronomers and space scientists and brings in some of the nation's best experts on K-12 education and education outreach programs. As its promotional material states, "SSI is one of the few organizations in the country implementing workshops on K-12 science education for scientists, engineers, and the professionals who facilitate their involvement in Education and Public Outreach (EPO)." I highly recommend it. While you're at it, check out SSI's "K-14 Education Workshop for Geoscientists, Engineers, and Education Managers" (www.spacescience.org/Education/ResourcesForScientists/
Workshops/Four-Day_Geo/1.html).

Another valuable resource is your teacher co-leader. Even if you were to have no formal discussions with him or her regarding pedagogy (ped'e-go'je n. the art, profession, or study of teaching) you can gain some insight into effective teaching (communication) strategies simply by observing how teachers interact with your club's students.

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