THE SUN-EARTH CONNECTION
An Education and Public Outreach (EPO)
Newsletter
for
the Sun-Earth Connection Science Community - and beyond!
May
28, 2003 Volume IV,
Issue 2
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See
End for Sponsor Information, How to Contribute (please
do!),
Contact Us, Unsubscribe, or Find Back Issues
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TABLE
OF CONTENTS
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=>
1. Venus Transit 2004 Update
=>
2. Review of Sun-Earth Day 2003: Live from the
=>
3. “Living with a Star” --A New GEMS Teacher’s Guide
on the Sun-Earth Connection, for
GRADES 6–8
=>
4. Sun-Earth Connection Media News
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1. VENUS TRANSIT 2004 UPDATE...GET INVOLVED!
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Preparations
are continuing to make a national and international
education
and public outreach (EPO) event of the rare Venus Transit
of
the Sun on
is
quickening! We have completed most of the planning phase of the
Big
Events 'VT' web pages, and are now starting to populate them
with
content. The coding of the pages will begin in mid-June and
we
plan to have a few 'teaser' pages up and running soon afterward.
The
entire site will be ready to air in late August (check in at
the
Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF) home page at
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/).
We
have just learned that Ronald Brashear, the Special
Collections
Curator at the
is
completing an exhibition on the Venus Transit, using photos and
documents
from the U.S. Naval Observatory. He and his organization
are
eager to partner with us, and we have begun talks to determine
how
we can best support each other’s efforts. A Science Advisory
Panel
has been set up by Dr. Rich Vondrak of Goddard Space Flight
Center
to help us identify some of the exciting, cutting-edge
scientific
issues that we can cover during this event. [Those of
us
who went to see the movie, “The Core,” realize that there is
much
we can do to further public education on planetary
magnetospheres
and the upcoming 'magnetic reversal' which may
or
may not actually happen in a few thousand years! The recent
Mercury
Transit was a great opportunity for the VTIE (Virtual
Telescopes
in Education--telescopes on the Internet) archive
to
test out working with remote observers and archiving images.
Missions
interested in contributing education products to the
annual
Educator's Product Folder are encouraged to contact
Carolyn
Ng at cang@pop600.gsfc.nasa.gov to go over the details.
At
the present time, the Sun-Earth Connection missions TRACE
and
Specifically,
TRACE should see the entire event, while
LASCO
instrument will see the run-up to the transit during June 6-7
and
the post-transit passage on June 9-10. The Solar System
Exploration
mission MESSENGER will be several million miles from
Venus
at the time of transit and could image the planet if this
kind
of observation is compatible with their mission/engineering
timeline.
Wouldn't it be great to be able to show Venus on the
same
day from two different vantage points! Meanwhile the Origins
missions
Kepler and Navigator, which explore exoplanets, are
preparing
outreach events timed with the Transit, including a
webcast.
Plans are also continuing for a live webcast from
with
SECEF on this activity.
More
activities and progress will be reported
in the next
newsletter.
If you are interested in contributing your own unique
resources
to this national and international education effort,
please
contact Dr. Sten Odenwald.
--
contributed by Sten Odenwald, Goddard Space Flight Center
odenwald@mail630.gsfc.nasa.gov
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2. REVIEW OF SUN-EARTH DAY 2003 -- LIVE FROM
THE
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On
Day.
At science museums, schools and star parties in
and
Sun
with telescopes connected to the Internet. They learned about
the
beautiful displays of the aurora (the Northern and Southern
Lights),
space weather and catastrophic power outages, as well
as
the culture of the northern peoples who live almost nightly
with
the shimmering phenomenon.
Leading
up to and on Sun-Earth Day 2003,
or
training for science teachers, students, and for the public.
During
February and March, more than 8,000 teachers participated
in
education workshops related to the science of the Sun-Earth
Connection.
In addition, 182 events were supported by amateur
astronomers.
“Living
With A Star,” a solar science documentary, was first
broadcast
on February 11th. This documentary
helped prepare
students
for “Live From the
providing
graphically-rich content and exciting science to capture
the
interest of students and teachers.
“Live
From the Aurora” aired on March 18th, featuring real-time
interaction
between NASA researchers on location at Poker Flat
aurora
with sounding rockets. Youngsters stayed up late at night
to
participate via webcast at the
(
(
(
of
NASA and University of Alaska/Geophysical Institute experts
on
the aurora by going to “On-Air” in the INTERACT section of
the
P2K/LIVE FROM THE AURORA website,
http://passporttoknowledge.com/sun/main.html
More than 150 Q&A’s
are
now archived online.
The
website, http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/sunearthday, provided
additional
resources to support educators, museums, and scientists
for
this year’s event. A new feature was added in January, the
“Student
Observation Network (SON).” Through the network students
can
track a solar storm and predict an aurora. Activities, Web
quests,
and a multimedia gallery were all created to support and
enhance
this year’s Sun-Earth Day and the ongoing SON effort.
The
public Sun-Earth Day, now in its third year, were created
to
communicate the excitement of the fast-moving field of solar
science
and research into the Sun’s effects on Earth.
SECEF
and Passport to Knowledge (P2K) jointly developed Sun-
Earth
Day, 2003 and its theme “Live from the
longest-running
series of interactive learning adventures on
public
TV.]
Sun-Earth
Day was once again a grand success in educating students,
educators
and the public on the wonders of the
Sun-Earth
Connection!
--
contributed by Elaine Lewis, Goddard Space Flight Center
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3. “LIVING WITH A STAR” --A NEW GEMS TEACHER’S
GUIDE
on the SUN-EARTH CONNECTION, for GRADES 6–8
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The
“Living with a Star” teacher’s guide will be released in
June
2003 as part of the Lawrence Hall of Science award-winning
Great
Explorations in Math and Science (GEMS) Series. This middle
school
guide, produced by NASA’s Sun-Earth Connection Forum and
the
UC Berkeley Lawrence Hall of Science, examines the Earth’s
relationship
to the dynamic Sun. The guide provides a series of
engaging
activities for students to help them understand aspects
of
the Sun-Earth system that affect life and society. A key goal
of
the guide is to make students aware of the risks of living with
our
nearest star, the Sun, and how “space weather” impacts
astronaut
safety, satellite operations, power grids, and
communications.
Over the course of this unit students engage in
activities
that lead them to discover for themselves the potential
risks
of living with a star, and about many important and useful
concepts
in space science, earth science and technology, physics,
and
health science.
The
guide includes a complementary CD-ROM and website that will
provide
access to NASA space weather information, satellite
imagery,
movies, scientist interviews, and other multimedia
resources.
The CD-ROM contains background materials, classroom
activities,
and the latest NASA images and research from SEC
missions,
and can be used by itself or together with the guide.
The
website can be accessed at www.lhsgems.org/lws
The
guide will be distributed nationally through an existing
network
of more than 75 GEMS sites that offer professional
development
and training on how to use the guides to teachers
in
their regions. For more information about GEMS guides, please
visit
www.lhsgems.org
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4. SUN-EARTH CONNECTION MEDIA NEWS
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The
Mercury Transit was a huge success earlier this month, thanks
to
coordinated efforts from the TRACE,
teams!
We received about 95 media hits including national stations
CNN
& Fox News and 6 of the top 10 markets. That does not include
web
& print hits.
Dr.
Fred Espenak & Dr. Beth Brown gave interviews regarding the
lunar
eclipse on May 15. They spoke live with about
30
stations around the country; among the suggested topics &
included
video for the interviews were reprisals of the Mercury
Transit
and a preview of the upcoming annular solar eclipse.
--contributed
by Rachel Weintraub, Associate TV producer at
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Newsletter
Sponsor Info: Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum
------------------------------------------------------------
An
integral element of the Office of Space Science (OSS)
education
and public outreach strategy is the establishment of
a
network for space science to foster a wide variety of edu-
cation
and public outreach activities. This network of
institutions
include (1) four Education Forums that serve as
major
centers for space science education and public outreach
in
each of the four OSS Themes, and (2) a set of regional
Broker/Facilitators
who, for example, help arrange collab-
orations
between scientists and the education community.
The
Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum (SECEF) is a partner-
ship
led by Goddard Space Flight Center and UC Berkeley’s
Space
Sciences Laboratory. To learn more about SECEF and the
Office
of Space Science Education and Public Outreach program,
go
to:
http://spacescience.nasa.gov/education/ecosystem/index.htm
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How
to Contact Us
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The
Sun-Earth CONNECTION Education and Public Outreach
newsletter
is issued approximately every 4-6 weeks. Back issues
can
be found at
http://sunearth.ssl.berkeley.edu/SECNews/
The
Newsletter is sponsored by the NASA Sun-Earth Connection
Education
Forum (
Rich
Vondrak and Isabel Hawkins, Co-Directors) Sun-Earth
Connection
Education Forum Web Site:
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov and
http://sunearth.ssl.berkeley.edu
Please
direct all submissions to the newsletter to:
Karin
Hauck (Editor) - E-mail: editor@sunearth.ssl.berkeley.edu
Phone: (510) 642-2343 Fax: (510) 643-5660
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