Heather Scott-Theismeijer
The Astronomy Education Review ( http://aer.noao.edu ) has put out a call for contributors to submit classroom Astronomy demonstrations for an upcoming issue. These can be demonstrations of any kind that you have found useful in teaching astronomical concepts, or modifications of “classic” demonstrations. This can even include the use of new educational technology in connection with demos. See the AER website above for more information - the deadline for submissions is January 2, 2008. Be sure to watch for this special demonstration issue later in 2008!
CASCA Education was represented at the Science Teachers’ Association of Ontario (STAO) 2007 conference in Toronto in November. Heather Theijsmeijer presented a 1-hour lecture entitled “Expanding Their Horizons: Connecting the Students to the Stars.” The talk focused on Canadian astronomy resources for teachers, primarily the CASCA Education website, and associated programs (notably the Canadian Junior Astronomer Program and the CASCA-Westar Lectureship series). There were about 25 teachers in attendance, filling the room. However, between other conference attendees picking up the in-print resources, and the audience members taking extras for their colleagues, approximately 50 in-print resources were distributed. Feedback on the talk was quite favourable, with most participants agreeing that the talk was “extremely effective,” and that they “will be able to apply what was learned to either their classroom or their personal life.”
The most recent CWL was on the east coast earlier this month, when visiting astronomer Jim Hesser traveled to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. His activities there included a public lecture at Cape Breton University (CBU), classroom presentations to both students of the Membertou First Nation Elementary School and the Sherwood Park Junior Secondary School, as well as presentations to university communities and Mi’kmaq groups on IYA2009. In addition, Jim was interviewed by CBC Radio for use in an upcoming presentation on CBU’s leadership in the Aboriginal component of IYA2009. A full report will be in the next issue of E-Cass.
Interested in being a CASCA-Westar Lecturer? Contact Heather Theijsmeijer at theijsh@rainbowschools.ca for more information.
The IYA Canada website is up and running! Be sure to check out http://www.astronomy2009.ca for updates on Canadian activities and projects for the International Year of Astronomy. To get involved in this exciting endeavour, contact Jim Hesser.
If you have been following the evolution of the CASCAed website ( http://www.cascaeducation.ca ), you may be interested in some of the following site statistics to date:
Since being launched in April 2003, the CASCA Education Website has seen nearly 15,000 visitors. The majority of visitors are North American (81.5%), with users in Europe visiting 4.4% of the time and users in Asia visiting 2% of the time. It is linked to by 51 separate websites (33 English and 18 French), such as the NRC, Canadian Teacher Magazine, and Planet Webquest. The pages which seem to be linked to the most are the science fair page, the careers page (which has recently been revamped by the CASCA E/PO committee), the astronomer profiles pages, the “buying a telescope” page and the Astronomy Day page. The CASCAed website has also been highlighted as the looknorth.ca site of the day, has been cited by the Internet Scout Project at the University of Wisconsin, and has been featured on HelpTV as a homework aid (the video of this television clip is available on the website).