VO enabling Education and Outreach

Education Resources in Astronomy

In the UK

• The PPARC Education pages are at http://www.pparc.ac.uk/Ed/school.asp

• The learning zone at the British National Space Centre: http://www.bnsc.gov.uk/index.cfm?pid=859
  • Note in particular how the material links to the KS2 and KS3 National Curriculum: http://www.bnsc.gov.uk/index.cfm?pid=1159
  • Material related to Beagle2 is at http://www.bnsc.gov.uk/index.cfm?pid=1203

• Education at the Faulkes Telescope - see http://143.210.40.252/education/

• The Schools Programme at the Royal Observatory Greenwich: http://212.219.145.17/education/programme/
  • This also has material relevant to KS1 and KS2

• The National Schools Observatory has a well developed set of material for schools: http://www.schoolsobservatory.org.uk/staff/yorteach/
  • With a pilot scheme for teaching in the primary school at KS2: http://www.schoolsobservatory.org.uk/staff/yorteach/prim/

• Schools can access real space data and educational support materials, directly related to the National Curriculum, through the Classroom Space project at the University of Leicester: http://www.classroomspace.org.uk

Elsewhere

• The Hands-On Universe is a major programme from the USA - 'an educational program that enables students to investigate the Universe while applying tools and concepts from science, math, and technology. Using the Internet, HOU participants around the world request observations from an automated telescope, download images from a large image archive, and analyze them with the aid of user-friendly image processing software'
  • HOU programmes have been set up in a number of other countries including Australia, Germany etc - see http://www.handsonuniverse.org/international/index.html

• The Griffith Observatory maintains a list of 'web sites that promote public awareness of astronomy' through it's Star Awards programme
  • 'Astronomy Homework Help' - many pointers at - http://members.aol.com/gca7sky/astrohelp.htm
  • 'Astronomy Links for Young Minds' - useful pointers to resources at http://members.aol.com/gca7sky/young.htm

Science and Maths Resources

• The Millennium Mathematics Project has 'broad goal is to help people of all ages and abilities share in the excitement of mathematics and understand the enormous range and importance of its applications to science and commerce.'
  • NRICH is a free online resource publishing a monthly issue (9 times a year, on the 1st of each month) containing mathematical enrichment material - challenges, puzzles, games, activities and teachers notes for whole classes, after schools clubs or individual students in primary and secondary schools aged between 5 and 18
    • Prime is aimed at KS1 and KS2
  • MOTIVATE is a real-time videoconferencing project for schools
    • Charles Clarke has visited MOTIVATE and seen it in action - see http://www.motivate.maths.org/news/news_CC.shtml

• Science Learning Centres: The aim of the Science Learning Centres is to provide innovative and inspiring professional development that will support teachers and technicians in delivering intellectually stimulating and relevant science education, helping students gain the knowledge and understanding they need — both as citizens and as scientists of the future.
  • Leicester University will host the Science Learning Centre East Midlands

General Education Resources

• The National Curriculum is available at http://www.nc.uk.net/index.html

• An example of a centralised IT online space that is being provided at the LEA level is:
  • The Portal Website for Cambridgeshire Schools

• The National Grid for Learning has set up 10 regional consortia to help schools exploit broadband technology
  • For instance the East of England Broadband Network (E2BN) covers: Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Luton, Milton Keynes, Norfolk, Peterborough, Southend On Sea, Suffolk, and Thurrock

• The National Grid for Learning Scotland provides on line service north of the border

AstroGrid

AstroGrid software makes an ideal starting point for any project which aims to make astronomy data (or any other science data for that matter) available to a general audience. Starting with our infrastructure, it would be relatively straight-forward to create:

• a portal customised for educational purposes
• which had access to optimum datasets
• and contained workflows that made complex tasks easy to achieve
• yet could be modified to, say, focus on different areas of the sky
• and where results could be tabulated, plottted and saved
• to a distributed file-space
• to which every registered student had personal access.

The best starting point for understanding AstroGrid is the set of architecture documents:

• ArchVision^?: gives a general understanding of the concept of the Virtual Observatory
• ArchOverview^?: explains the structure of AstroGrid and how it can be customised for particular uses

Talks, Presentations & Papers

Check out the following talks and papers which explore the potential educational aspects of AstroGrid.

• Talk given by Nic Walton at the PPARC PR meeting 27 November 2002 in Bristol - titled Delivering the Digital Sky@Large - available in [pdf] format.

• Talk given by Nic Walton at the RAS NAM2003 in Dublin - titled The Virtual Observatory: Empowering Education - available in [pdf] format.