Collaboration as a Viable Approach for Making Astrophysics Research accessible to the K-12 Community through the Internet and the World Wide Web

Summary

Introduction

We describe a partnership approach in place at UC Berkeley's Center for Extreme Ultraviolet Astrophysics (CEA) that: (a) facilitates the adaptation of astrophysics data and information from NASA and other sources for use in the K–12 classroom, (b) facilitates scientists’ participation in astronomy education, and (c) engages a sustained collaboration typically including personnel from research institutions, centers of informal science teaching such as museums and planetaria, university-based schools of education, and K–12 schools. We are investigating several ways of engaging scientists in partnerships for the purpose of making their research results accessible in appropriate ways to the K-12 community via Internet and World Wide Web technologies. Our investigation addresses the hypothesis that the transition of scientific data and research results from the workplace to the classroom can be facilitated by the joint creation of curriculum materials by teams of cognitive experts, subject-matter experts, and teachers. In particular, we are investigating how space science, astronomy, and Earth science research results can be adapted through a partnership approach into more effective representations for use in the classroom. Our strategy for evaluating our partnership approach engaged the participation of personnel from scientific research institutions, centers of informal science learning, and schools. We describe several projects led by UC Berkeley's Center for EUV Astrophysics: “Science On-Line,” “Science Information Infrastructure,” and “Satellite Operations Class for Teachers.” Our projects have two primary and complementary components, namely, implementation in school districts serving students with wide-ranging socio-economic backgrounds and a science education research component based on in-depth project evaluation.