The MicroObservatory Net

Beginning in 1990, a group of scientists, engineers and educators based at the Harvard- Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) developed a prototype of a small, inexpensive and fully integrated automated astronomical telescope and image processing system. The MicroObservatory combines the imaging power of a cooled CCD, with a self contained and weatherized reflecting optical telescope and mount. A microcomputer points the telescope and processes the captured images. Software for computer control, pointing, focusing, filter selection as well as pattern recognition have also been developed. The telescope was designed to be used by teachers for classroom instruction, as well as by students for original scientific research projects. Probably in no other area of frontier science is it possible for a broad spectrum of students (not just the gifted) to have access to state-of-the-art technologies that allow for original research projects. The MicroObservatory has also been designed to be used as a valuable new capture and display device for real-time astronomical imaging in planetariums and science museums. The project team has now built five second generation instruments. The new instruments will be tried with high school and university students and teachers, as well as with museum groups over the next two years.

Though originally designed for use in individual schools, we are now planning to make the MicroObservatories available to students, teachers and other individual users over the Internet. We plan to allow the telescopes to be controlled in real time or in batch mode, from a Macintosh or PC compatible computer. In the real-time mode, we hope to give individuals access to all of the telescope control functions without the need for an “onsite” operator.

Introduction

Like many research institutions, the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysicsf (CfA), has been actively engaged in education and public outreach activities for many years. The Harvard University Department of Astronomy, the formal higher education arm of the CfA, offers an undergraduate concentration and a doctoral program. In our Science Education Department, educational researchers manage ten programs that address the needs of teachers and students (K–12 and college), through advanced technology, teacher enhancement programs, and the development of curriculum materials. The Editorial and Public Affairs Department offers several public lecture series, recorded sky information, children's nights, and runs the Whipple Observatory Visitors Center in Amado, AZ. In this environment of successful programs, the High Energy Astrophysics (HEA) division, one of seven research divisions at the CfA, has initiated, or partnered with other institutions, development of several new education and outreach programs. Some of these programs involve partnerships with the education community, but all of them have been initiated by and involve scientists.

Astronomical research in the HEA division is mainly focused on x-ray astronomy and the development of advanced x-ray instrumentation. Historically, involvement in education and outreach programs, including presenting public talks, school talks, the development of slides sets, and the publication of popular articles, has been informal. With management support, however, this long-lived tradition of informal education and outreach recently has coalesced into several formal programs that target three specific groups: college students, K–12 students and teachers, and the general public.

Overview

Project ASTRO is designed to improve astronomy education and science literacy in grades 4–9 by creating effective working partnerships between teachers/youth leaders and astronomers (both professional and amateur). Key elements of the program include:

• training the teachers/youth leaders and astronomers together in inquiry-based “handson, minds-on” learning activities

• encouraging an active working partnership between the astronomer and the teacher/youth leader

• encouraging multiple visits by the astronomer to the classroom or youth group meetings.

The ASP conducted a Project ASTRO pilot in California from 1992–1995, funded primarily by the National Science Foundation. The success of the pilot led to a second grant from NSF (1996–1998) to expand Project ASTRO to several other cities in the United States.

In the 3-year pilot project a total of 104 astronomers and 150 teachers formed 96 teams. More than 85% of the astronomers visited their adopted classrooms four or more times, with 46% making 5–10 visits during the school year. Approximately 10,000 students were involved. The Project ASTRO staff developed an extensive set of astronomy activities and tested resources, now available from the ASP as The Universe at Your Fingertips: An Astronomy Activity and Resource Notebook. The staff also published the Project ASTRO How-To Manual for Teachers and Astronomers.

In the first years, astronomers and teachers received stipends for attending training workshops. All participants either volunteered their time or were given release time by their employers for all time involved in planning and implementing their partnership visits and activities.

The independent evaluator rated the project “extremely successful”, noting that 91% of the teachers felt they were teaching more astronomy as a result of the project.

It is now well established that children construct their own explanations for the easily observed astronomical events before they receive any formal education in astronomy (see Mali & Howe, 1985; Nussbaum & Novak, 1976; Vosnaidou, 1991. It is also generally accepted that childrens notions, or ‘alternative frameworks’ are tenacious and frequently pass into adulthood (Gunstone et al, 1981). Baxter's (1989) survey revealed a hierarchy of alternative frameworks about astronomy that became less naive as age increases, but also revealed that many pupils leaving school at the age of 16 years did not explain the easily observed astronomical events within a post-Copernican framework.

Until the introduction of a National Curriculum in 1989, astronomy rarely featured in English schools’ science curricula (see Lintern-Ball, 1972; Baxter, 1991). Therefore, it is not surprising to discover that many children and adults (Durant, Evans and Thomas, 1989) have concepts about astronomy that bear a closer resemblance to those of the Dark Ages than the 20th-century space age.

For over six years now astronomy has been an established part of English children's school science experience. The survey reported in this paper was carried out to discover if children's alternative frameworks have been affected by the more widespread teaching of astronomy.

Methods of Investigation

This study investigated children's ideas about the same four astronomical domains researched in the 1988 survey (see Baxter, 1989):

• Planet Earth in space.

• Day and night.

• Phases of the Moon.

• The seasons.

The study employed the same astronomy conceptual survey instrument developed for the 1988 survey (see Baxter, 1989, for full details of the survey method).

Introduction

The Open University is the UK's foremost distance teaching university. For over twenty five years we have been presenting courses to students spanning a wide range of degree level and vocational subjects. Since we have no pre-requisites for entry, a major component of our course profile is a selection of foundation courses comprising one each in the Arts, Social Science, Mathematics, Technology and Science faculties. The Science Faculty's foundation course is currently undergoing a substantial revision. The new course, entitled “S103: Discovering Science”, will be presented to students for the first time in 1998.

The University has always aimed to make use of appropriate technologies for delivering its teaching material. For the first time, this new version of the Science Foundation Course will make extensive use of fully integrated CD-ROM based activities. One of these is a “Virtual Telescope” package designed to give students an appreciation of what is required to measure the expansion of the Universe.

S103: Discovering Science

The four science disciplines of biology, chemistry, Earth sciences and physics each contribute in equal measure to the course. Whilst parts of the course are deliberately multi-disciplinary, in order to give students a feel for science as a whole, other parts of the course reflect the very different natures of the four component disciplines. The course will be studied over a thirty-two week period and is accredited at 60 CATS points at level one. (CATS stands for Credit Accumulation Transfer Scheme and is the national scheme within the UK for classifying higher education courses.) A degree is awarded for an accumulation of 360 CATS points, split between levels one, two and three.

Introduction

The impact of public education is without question in the ‘public good’ domain and hence there is really no need to justify the demand for it. However, some professionals and scientists remain unconvinced about the necessity for it. This paper will lay out the benefits it holds for the scientists, categorise the target groups and identify the methods of approach for each target group and finally outline some strategies that can be adopted to achieve the educational aims.

Benefits of public education for the professionals

Contrary to belief, the professionals have more to gain from public education than the public. There are several reasons for this.

The first of these is that public education calls attention to the scientist's work. The publicity generated through this will indirectly attract the attention of the relevant agencies or bodies that disburse grants, approve programmes or determine manpower requirements. In the light of budget cutbacks, downsizing demands and rationalisation exercises that are getting commonplace, the scientists will do well to create a public alertness to stave off these calamities. Public interest usually signifies a demand for the science or the field or the department and, therefore, the authorities might think twice before taking any negative action.

Secondly, it is obvious that through public education a scientist will be able to gain fame. This is not entirely without advantage – one day at a highway toll booth, the operator recognised me and waved me off.

Astronomy is an important science in understanding a human environment. However, it is thought by most politicians, economists, and members of the public that astronomy is a pure science having no contribution to daily human activities except a few matters relating to time. The Japanese government is studying a reorganisation of our school system to have 5 school days per week, instead of 6 days per week, and this July its committee made a recommendation to reduce school hours for science and set up new courses for practical computers and environmental science. I currently made a proposal. It is very difficult for most of the school pupils, who will have non-scientific jobs, to understand science courses currently taught in school, because each science is taught independently from the other sciences. Therefore, their knowledge of sciences obtained during their school period does not greatly help their understanding of global environmental problems. We should present several stories to connect all the related sciences in order to give those pupils ideas in the understanding of global environmental problems. I believe that astronomy is able to play an important role in this context.

Expansion of scientific items to be taught.

Items which should be taught at school increase depending on time. Although items in language courses, mathematics courses, art courses and gymnastic courses increase little, those of social science courses increase gradually, but those in science courses do so drastically in recent decades. Therefore, it becomes much more difficult to teach all the necessary pupils. Pupils at the lower level of an elementary school have an interest in science, especially in astronomy.

I would like to dedicate this paper to the memory of professor Edith A. Miiller, deceased at the age of 77 a year ago, on July 24, 1995, until her retirement working at Geneva Observatory. She had been at the very beginnings of our IAU Commission 46 in the late sixties, she had been its President in 1970 when we all met during the General Assembly in Brighton, she always took great interest in further educational developments. I am personally grateful to her for much helpful advice during Commission 46 meetings at the General Assembly of 1985 in New Delhi. Wonderful teacher and organizer, she was also an extremely kind lady.

While I am not aware of any connection of Edith Mueller with a special planetarium, yet I have chosen this short biographical note to introduce my first problem, not so very obvious when mentioning generally planetarium activities. Nearly every planetarium bears the name of a patron, who either made the existence of that institution possible through financing, or was well known in the town or country for his/her interests in astronomy, etc. Let me mention two examples: Luiz Erro Planetarium in Mexico City, and Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium in New Delhi. While Erro had been very interested in astronomy – he once studied at Harvard and helped introduce modern astrophysics to his country – Nehru had been a national person: the Planetarium is next to the Nehru Memorial Museum; Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Nehru's Daughter, attended in person the Planetarium opening.

The development of distance education in South Africa: historical background and the University of South Africa

The University of South Africa celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Over this period it grew, becoming one of the largest tertiary distance education institutions and the largest university on the African continent.

South Africa always had a mixed racial population with each group having its own culture. This difference between people is further aggravated by differences in the level of “westernisation”. Furthermore, South Africa also suffers from an extreme urbanisation problem where on the one hand we find modern cities and on the other tribal groups. All these factors led to a differentiation of the population into a first world and third world component.

In 1858 the government of the Cape Colony decided to institute a board of public examiners in literature and science. The task was to set syllabuses and to set and conduct examinations at college level. In 1864 this board instituted a certificate which was equivalent to the British matriculation certificate. The board only conducted examinations, but offered no training. In 1873 the parliament of the Cape of Good Hope decided to establish the University of the Cape of Good Hope. The University still was an examining body only, which set syllabi, conducted examinations and held graduation ceremonies. Its degrees were recognised by the British Commonwealth.

This institution had to face some very adverse criticism from those who felt that a university can only function in a direct teaching situation, that it was too “foreign” (British) for the country and that it was a mere factory of certificates.

Background

The Teaching and Learning Technology Programme (TLTP) in the UK was launched in 1992 to “develop innovations in teaching and learning through the power of technology”. Increasing numbers of students with mixed abilities and backgrounds were entering into higher education. Flexible course structures and the need for remedial teaching added further motivation in the search for methods of improving productivity and efficiency.

Since 1992 over 33 million of funding has been awarded to 76 projects spanning the university curriculum. When support from host institutions is taken into account, overall funding for the TLTP is estimated at 75 million. TLTP materials are now becoming available to assist institutions in maintaining and enhancing the quality of their teaching provision. The successful implementation of this new technology is requiring each institution to rethink its teaching and learning strategies (Laurillard, 1993).

Approximately one quarter of the projects are based on a single institution and are concerned with the culture change, the integration of technology and staff development. The remainder are consortia concerned with courseware development and involve staff from between two and fifty universities.

Astronomy is represented within one of the largest consortia, the UK Mathematics Courseware Consortium (UKMCC), which has received 1.3 million of TLTP funding. Other projects include Software Teaching of Modular Physics (SToMP) and Statistics Education through Problem Solving (STEPS).

UK Mathematics Courseware Consortium

Mathwise, the product of the UKMCC, is an exciting new computer-based learning environment for students of mathematics in the sciences and engineering (Beilby, 1993 and Harding, 1996). A set of fifty modules in foundation mathematics and its applications are being developed.

Introduction

Education is training, part of which is being able to handle information. At meetings such as this, one learns new ways to teach and to adapt ideas to one's culture in a way they can have a greater influence on the lay person (Pasachoff and Percy, 1990; Percy, 1996). A reason to promote science popularization is to give people a chance to experience the pleasure of understanding.

Traditionally written materials and planetariums were the ideal way to convey astronomical knowledge and to start an interest in science. Now the media, WWW and interactive exhibits are having a great influence on the lay person. Science centres are an important aid for education; they present astronomy in an attractive way, which is sometimes difficult to do at school. It is easier to teach something that pupils enjoy.

This paper will focus on science centres in Mexico; some of the ideas that we have used could help other developing nations with their projects. In order to grasp the differences between other countries and Mexico, I shall only mention that the average education is five years in large cities nad two in the country; 78 million, out of 95 million inhabitants, never buy a book, and only 1 million purchase more than 10 books per year; the introductory astronomy course that is taught to over 200,000 students per year in the USA is only taught to about 60 pupils per year at our National University.

We shall describe some of the activities that science centres can provide in order to aid public understanding of astronomy and the ways in which several very small museums have been installed in Mexico.

A reform of the content of university education is taking place in Russia today. A restoration of human directed principles, the denial of strict ideological components in education and an improvement in the teaching content of the humanities, are among the most important characteristics of the on-going reforms. An important part of today's activities is the introduction of the basics of natural sciences to the process of teaching humanities. We have gained four years experience in the establishment of natural sciences in humanities at the Ural State University (Ekaterinburg, Russia).

Here I present the methodological strategy of the basic general course of Natural History for humanities. The course is compulsory for undergraduate students of all the humanities (Depts. of Art, Philosophy, Sociology and Politology, Philology, History, Journalism and Economics). It begins from the first year and takes 3 semesters in the Dept. of Philosophy (60 hours of lectures and seminars) and 2 semesters in the other Depts. (40 hours of lectures and seminars). The course is united by a general idea — the History of the Earth. It is divided into three parts: (1) Cosmic period of the history of the Earth, (2) Matter and Energy (only for the Dept. of Philosophy), and (3) Geological and biological periods in the history of the Earth. The first (astronomical) part in turn consists of three chapters: (a) Scientific pictures of the world and their creators, (b) The real Universe (state of art geometry and physics of space), (c) “Genesis” (formation and evolution of the Universe, Sun and the Earth).

As yet, astronomy, the most ancient of all sciences, surprisingly is not included in French secondary science classes. Recent trends in favour of a more attractive and motivating scientific education have taken it up.

Astronomy has, at all times, been arising curiosity, and now provides a privileged field to scientific approach :

• Observation of the vault of heaven and its peculiarities

• Description of its general appearance and of the specific movement of stars and Planets

• Measurement of distances, coordinates and angles.

• This will make it possible to define successive models, which will be ever closer to the observed reality.

The obstacle of mathematics must be avoided or bypassed : many devices and demonstration models allow for a simplified and convincing approach. Computers may be valuable tools. My purpose is not to go through the multimedia version of an encyclopaedia but to follow some new trails.

DIGITAL IMAGES are efficient tools for first experiences : observation can be adapted to a specific public and digital images can guide pupils through observation. They facilitate measuring operations : interaction will incite users to creativity and discovery, and numerical models will be exploited much more easily.

The movement of planets is a quite convincing example. I use for that purpose a series of digital images of the sky : each photograph represents the constellation of Taurus, all taken during the 1990–1991 winter. My software allows pupils to recognize the characteristic stars of that region and to locate the moving planet Mars among them.

Solar eclipses draw the attention of the general public to celestial events in the countries from which they are visible, and broad public education programs are necessary to promote safe observations. Most recently, a subcommittee of IAU Commission 46 composed of Julieta Fierro (from the National University of Mexico), the Canadian professor of optometry Ralph Chou (from the University of Waterloo) and me provided information about safe observations of the 24 October 1995 eclipse to people in Pakistan, India, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Guam. An important point is that there are advantages to seeing eclipses, including inspiration to students, and that people must always be given correct information. If scare techniques are used to warn people off eclipses, when it is later found out that the eclipse was not dangerous and, indeed, was spectacular, these students and other individuals will not trust warnings for truly hazardous activities like smoking, drugs, and behavior that puts one at risk for AIDS.

A total eclipse of the Sun is the most spectacular sight that can be seen, in my view, both from its physical and from its emotional impact, with the otherwise powerful Sun disappearing in the middle of the day. Though public interest in eclipses may be intense for only the immediate days preceding them, we can nonetheless take advantage of this interest to carry across important scientific ideas. The notion that the Universe is understandable and, in important ways, predictable, is a powerful idea that acts against the ideas of superstition and pseudoscience that are so rampant.