F I N E S S
E
Folio of Information for New England Space Scientists in Education
Bulletin #8: August 2006
International
Astronomical Union General Assembly, 14-25
August 2006 in Prague will feature a Special Session on “Innovation
in Teaching / Learning Astronomy Methods” (17-18 August).
Astronomical Society of the Pacific 118th
Annual Meeting -- “Engaging
the EPO Community: Best Practices, New Approaches, 15-18 September 2006
in Baltimore, MD.
New England Summit on Earth and
Space Science Education,
September
25, 2006 ~ The Museum of Science, Boston will host a one day summit
on Earth and Space Science Education intended to bring together NASA educators,
informal science education professionals,
and Earth & space
scientists who are involved in EPO for mutual discussions of common interests,
goals, and messages. See website for more details.
This event is FREE! If you are interested in participating,
please send a one to two-page Word document summarizing your science
education program(s)
to
Karen
Spence
at kspence@mos.org.
This document will become part of a "briefing notebook" that
will be distributed to all registrants at the meeting. You may also choose
to
publish your document
online at the NESSIE website. For more information, please contact Bill
Waller at wwaller@mos.org.
Teacher
Exchange on Improving the Introductory Astronomy Survey Course for Non-Science Majors through Active Learning, 30 September 2006 in
Plymouth, NH. This workshop is hosted by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s
Center for Astronomy Education and NESSIE. We will focus on examining
and improving our course syllabi.
NESSIE supports regional workshops for New England space scientists and educators.
These workshops provide important opportunities for scientists to become acquainted
with research findings in science education, proven pedagogical methods, and
recommended educational resources in space science education. They also provide
opportunities for scientists to partner with local educators from the K-12,
after-school, museum, and NASA communities. The next regional workshop will
occur 22-23 June at the Museum of Science, Boston. If you would like to participate
in this workshop or would like information on similar workshops, please contact
Cathy Clemens at cclemens@mos.org.
| EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES: |
Some
of these may have been filled, so please check before applying.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has two fellowship opportunities
for scientists and science students interested in education. (Full
job description at the NSF website).
The “NSF
Astronomy and Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowships” provide
support for postdoctoral astronomical research in combination with educational
outreach (see listing 03-578). The deadline for this fellowship opportunity
is October 11.
Current recipients of NASA space science research awards
under the ROSS and ROSES programs are invited to apply for supplemental
funding in support of their active involvement in Education and Public
Outreach. Funding levels are up to $15K/year for individuals and $50K/year
for collaborations, where related research programs can be pooled. See
NASA Guidelines
and Opportunities for E/PO for more information.
Abstracts
of E/PO programs that were awarded in FY2000 – FY2004 can be viewed
on this site as well. See also your local Broker/Facilitator (NESSIE) who can
help you formulate your EPO program.
A special EPO proposal opportunity is available with the new “International
Heliophysical Year (IHY) Research Program.” The proposal opportunity
can be found in Amendment No. 11 to the NASA Research Announcement "Research
Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) 2006" (NNH06ZDA001N)
which is posted on the NASA
research opportunity website,
(select "Solicitations" then "Open Solicitations" then "NNH06ZDA001N"). Questions may be addressed to Dr. Madhulika Guhathakurta, Heliophysics
Division, Science Mission Directorate, National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, Washington, DC 20541; Telephone: (202) 358-1992; E-mail:
Madhulika.Guhathakurta@nasa.gov
Current recipients of Hubble, Chandra, and Spitzer research awards are also
invited to apply for supplementary funding in support of developing and implementing
EPO programs. For more details, see Funding
Opportunities for Scientists to access the pertinent mission’s
website.
The IDEAS program welcomes space scientists to apply for funding in support
of innovative programs in Education and Public Outreach. Funding levels are
up to $20K for one-year programs and up to $50K for two-year programs. See
website, for more details – including abstracts of winning
proposals. The IDEAS program is currently under review with plans for this
coming year available sometime in mid-August.
| RESOURCES FOR EMPOWERING SCIENTISTS IN EDUCATION: |
A web clearinghouse for scientists in education has
been created by the Space Science Institute in Boulder, CO. Scientistsineducation.org is
a one-stop-shopping center for scientist-oriented education and public
outreach where you can
find information on getting travel
awards for conducting and communicating your EPO programs,
guidelines for writing E/PO proposals, white papers on why and how scientist
involvement in EPO is important, links to winning proposal abstracts, news
of pertinent workshops and conferences, and profiles of scientists in E/PO.
Communicating your accomplishments in E/PO is important to developing
the field of space science education and is beneficial to your professional
resume. The Astronomy Education Review (AER) invites scholarly papers for
peer review, descriptions and updates of E/PO programs, commentaries, and
other contributions relevant to astronomy education. See http://aer.noao.edu.
If
you have a website that you think would be of interest to the Space
Science Education and Public Outreach community, please send the
link and a brief description of the website to our webmaster Karen Spence
at kspence@mos.org for possible
posting on the
NESSIE website.
We are especially interested in personal profiles of New England
space scientists who
have been involved in Education and Public Outreach (see for example Profiles
of Scientists in Education and Public Outreach at the Space Science
Institute website).
Contact:
Bill Waller – (NESSIE)
E-mail: wwaller@mos.org
URL: http://www.mos.org/nessie
Phone: (617) 589-0227
FINESSE is a quarterly eNewsletter
service from NASA's New England Space Science Initiative in Education (NESSIE).
To
subscribe, please send an email to kspence@mos.org.
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