| The story on STORI |
| The Story on STORI |
The space center has recently concluded an astronomy workshop for Arkansas teachers. The STORI (Summer Triangle: Observing, Research, and Inquiry) workshop took place on the University of Arkansas campus, June 13-17. The participants are below.
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Katherine Borecky, Sylvan Hills Middle School Katherine Borecky is an 8th grade Earth science teacher at Sylvan Hills Middle School in Sherwood, AR. She has taught Earth science for 13 years and loves to encourage her students to become life-long learners. |
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Rick Clow, North Main Intermediate School Rick Clow teaches 3rd, 4th, 8th and 9th grade gifted and talented students at North Main Intermediate School and Wells Junior High School in Greenwood, AR. He is interested in learning more about astronomy and space to better teach his students. |
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Chris Holzer, Langston Magnet School Chris Holzer is a 4th grade teacher from Langston Magnet School in Hot Springs, AR. She teaches at an aerospace and environmental studies magnet and her school is a NASA Explorer school. |
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Kerry Tietze, Fouke Public Schools Kerry Tietze is a K-12 gifted and talented teacher in the Fouke Public Schools in Fouke, AR. Currently, she is building a gifted education program for a small rural school district from the ground up. |
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Laurie Voss, Farmington Jr. High School Laurie Voss is an 8th grade Earth/space science teacher at Farmington Junior High School in Farmington, AR. Her degree is Earth science and she has a strong interest in astronomy. |
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Christina Willis, Langston Magnet School Christina Willis is a 4th grade teacher at Langston Magnet School in Hot Springs, AR. She is completing her first year of teaching. |
During the week-long workshop, which was funded by the Arkansas Center for Space and Planetary Sciences, the teachers participated in a variety of activities, not the least of which, was assembling and learning to align a telescope! Accomodations, meals and supplies for participants were paid for by the space center. Participants were also given telescopes and an annual subscription to Night Sky magazine. In addition to observing activities, the teachers were given ideas about how to stimulate their students through astronomy in the realms of poetry, music and daily life, as well as receiving insight into the science and its current focus.
| Center News |
| New Staff Member Joins Space Center |
Walter Graupner of West Fork recently joined our staff as the Laboratory Manager in the space center.
Walter will oversee and manage the equipment in the Keck Laboratory. Major equipment in the space center includes a large vacuum chamber used for planetary simulations.
Walter has several years of industrial experience and he is a former graduate of the University of Arkansas.
| Center Research |
| New Research Awards |
Dr. Rick Ulrich, a member of the space center and a faculty member in Chemical Engineering, and his collaborator Dr. Pat Parkerson in Computer Engineering have received an award (~$225,000) from a local company, Space Photonics Inc. (SPI), to assist in the development of a center for environmental, electrical and mechanics tests on high-speed, fiber-optic communication devices created by SPI for use in satellites, military aircraft and spacecraft.
The center will be named the Arkansas Space and Photonics (ASaP) Optoelectronics Qualifications Center. SPI is an industrial partner of the space center.
Dr. Claud Lacy, also of the space center, a Physics faculty member, and the director of the astronomy program at the University of Arkansas, has received an NSF grant to further develop his use of robotic observing techniques as an educational tool in the undergrduate classroom.
According to Lacy, it has been shown that adding undergraduate observational research studies throughout the astronomy curriculum improves both student learning and interest. With introductory astronomy classes of 180 students, however, observing space phenomena is not practical without automating the observing process itself, since the classes are so large. The addition of a webscope to the class, or web-based robotic observatory (URSA), was created and is now in use by 500 undergraduate students per year. The webscope helps more students observe space.
The successful results of the prior URSA project will be adapted and implemented to create a simple NFO user interface and effective educational materials for a new advanced curriculum. Because of the bright sky background of the URSA telescope, which is situated in the middle of Fayetteville, a much larger and more capable webscope is now being commissioned at a dark-sky site in New Mexico (the NFO WebScope), and is primarily for advanced students. Any telescope time not utilized for teaching purposes will be used in an integrated fashion for faculty research in collaboration with students, as is now being done with the URSA webscope.
| Seminiars and Lectures |
| 2005 REU Summer Seminars |
Week 5 - June 21
Asteroid sampler development
Larry Roe, Melissa Franzen
Week 6 - June 28
Review presentations by REU students full day
Keck Lab, MUSE 109
Week 7 - July 5
Searching for NEO
Claud Lacy, Al Grauer
Week 8 - July 12
Mars exploration II (Mars, sinkholes and missions)
Derek Sears, Ken Steele
Week 9 - July 19
Making an oral presentation
Rick Ulrich
Week 10 - July 28
Final presentations (oral) by REU students full day
Keck Lab, MUSE 109