E/PO Activities in the HEASARC

1. E/PO Activities in the HEASARC James Lochner HEASARC E/PO Lead

2. Our E/PO Objectives • Promote our Science, Missions, and Technology to the general public. • Develop curriculum support materials with teachers for the K-14 education community. • Integrate various E/PO initiatives within HEASARC and the LHEA into a coherent program. • Distribute materials and information via high-leverage opportunities. • Monitor our efforts via formal evaluations and teacher feedback. • Integrate our efforts with SEU Education Forum and OSS E/PO Support Network.

3. E/PO Team • E/PO Scientist Lead, 2+ support staff • Portion of time of science writer, graphic artist, and meeting support staff. • Summer teacher interns and network of teachers representing a wide range of classroom levels and technology capabilities. • Dozen volunteer scientists and programmers. • Answer “Ask a High-Energy Astronomer” questions. • Provide input and review to Imagine web site and materials. • Leverage off other Lab and GSFC expertise and resources.

4. Education Web sites • Imagine the Universe! • More than half million hits per month • Distribute > 20,000 CDs/year. • CD rated for “broad distribution” by Space Science Education Product Review. • Planning tri-annual external review of the site. • StarChild (Whitlock) • L. Whitlock continues to maintain and develop site as we host it. • 1.2 Million hits per month (among top 3 sites at GSFC). • Astronomy Picture of the Day (Bonnell and Nemiroff (MTU)) • 6 million hits per month (top site at GSFC). • HEA Picture of the Week (Corcoran)

5. Materials Under Development Poster and Information Booklet on the cosmic origin of the elements & their connection to us. Lab Scientists, E/PO staff, and GSFC Education office participating in development.

6. Development of Cosmic Connection Materials • Material tested at “Elements 2002” summer workshop for educators. • Participants developed classroom activities for booklet. Activities tested by external educators. • Assistance in facilitation of workshop provided by Ilan Chabay. • Follow-up meeting reviewed test results and finalized the activities. • Poster evaluated by expert in graphic science. • Further evaluation of poster by students in coming weeks. • 1-hr workshop for NSTA under development (with AESP in GSFC Education Office). • Expect completion in 2003.

7. Hera Education Interface • Give teachers and students easy access to data and software tools via the Hera framework to engage students in the process of doing science. • Summer teacher intern guided the content and scope of data and analysis. • We’ve also studied the Chandra education software and activities for ds9. • We have developed a guided project in which students apply epoch folding to RXTE ASM data. • An extension of an Imagine lesson. • We’ve also identified additional data sets for students to further explore.

8. Hera Education Interface (cont.) • Prototype interface has been constructed. • Utilizes selected tools with salient input parameters. • Includes web page walk-through of data analysis process. • Future projects will include imaging and spectra. • Funded by GSFC Director’s Discretionary Funding.

9. Outreach to Undergrads and Graduate Students • Astronomy 191 (Corcoran) • Astrophysics from a high-energy perspective • George Washington Univ, upper undergrad-lower graduate level course. Offered once a year since 1996. • Team taught by 6 Lab scientists • Web site includes syllabus and lectures • X-ray Astronomy School (Harrus and Arnaud) • For graduate students and recent post-docs to understand the foundations of X-ray Astronomy. • Previous schools had attendances of 40 & 55 students • 3rd Annual School, May 12-16, 2003 at Wallops.