Education at CASCA 2002
The CASCA Education Committee congratulates the Graduate Student Committee for organizing a very successful one-day workshop on Education and Outreach, as part of CASCA 2002. Tim Slater (University of Arizona), one of the workshop leaders, stayed on to give a plenary lecture at the conference. There were also contributed oral and poster papers on education. The CASCA Education Committee is working with the organizers of CASCA 2003 and 2004 to develop other interesting education components for our annual meetings.
CASCA-Westar Visiting Lectureship
CASCA has recently instituted a Visiting Lectureship to smaller centres in Canada—those without nearby professional astronomy facilities. These two-day visits are patterned after the AAS Harlow Shapley Visiting Lecturers Program which has been operating for several decades. The first two-day visit was made by John Percy to North Bay ON on 15-16 April. He gave a public lecture on "Planets Around Other Stars" to over 100 people, and gave similar lectures to two groups of grade nine students, each numbering over 300. Each lecture was followed by an enthusiastic question/discussion period. Resource material was distributed to about 30 local teachers. Special thanks to the North Bay Astronomy Club, and especially Merlin Clayton, for making this visit so successful.
The Education and Public Outreach (E/PO) Initiative
Two major developments took place in the last quarter: (1) CASCA signed a contract with the Ontario Ministry of Enterprise, Opportunity, and Innovation to develop an outreach initiative for Ontario youth, and (2) the Advisory Board for the E/PO initiative met in Toronto on 12-13 April. The Advisory Board includes representatives from CASCA, RASC, NRC, CSA, the Francophone astronomy clubs, and the planetarium and astronomy journalism communities. Among its recommendations were: the initiative should target youth educators; it should emphasize high-quality, relevant, Canadian information and resources; it should identify and use exemplary, existing material where possible; it should be based around a simple, effective web site ("steak, not sizzle") but also provide print material where needed; it should include material in both English and French, and be accessable to all Canadians; it should work closely, through partnerships, with the rest of the astronomical and education communities; it should work through a "network and nodes" structure (many nodes are already in place); it should continue to be administered by CASCA with strong input from advisors and partners.
The CASCA Education Committee is presently developing a job description for a part-time Education Coordinator. Among other things, that person will supervise the development of the Canadian astronomy education web site.
At CASCA 2002, John Percy reported on the progress of the initiative; at the 2002 General Assembly of the RASC, he also reported on the initiative, and gave a talk on "Outreach: Why You Should Do It, and How To Succeed". This paper is to be published in the JRASC in the near future.
John R. Percy jpercy@erin.utoronto.ca
Erindale College, University of Toronto phone: (905) 828-5351
Mississauga, Ontario, Canada L5L 1C6 fax: (905) 828-5425