Goals. Project ASTRO's amateur and professional
astronomers work in partnership with educators to bring
astronomy to students and to help teachers develop their
understanding and comfort with astronomy.
Commitment. Participating astronomers make a
commitment to attend a training workshop and to visit
their partner school at least four times during the
school year. Almost all astronomers make at least three
to four visits during their first year in the project,
and a good number visit more often, some as many as
weekly.
Roles for Astronomer during Class Visits. Astronomers
play a number of different roles during their visits.
Most astronomers, working together with their teacher
partners, lead or help lead students in hands-on
astronomy activities. In many cases, the astronomer and
teacher "team-teach," that is, they lead the
activity together. In other cases, teachers prepare their
students for the visit, and the astronomer leads the
activity on his or her own.
Kinds of Activities. The activities led by the
astronomer-teacher team or the astronomer alone may be
closely linked to the classroom curriculum and what the
students are currently studying, or they may be done as
stand-alone astronomy lessons.
Planning and Follow-up. Astronomers and
teachers together determine how to structure their visits
and what roles to play, given their particular interests
and situation. Teachers generally continue the astronomy
activities between the astronomer's visits.
An Example Activity. One example of the type of
activity astronomers and teachers might do involves
having students observe and investigate the Moon and its
phases, using activities from The
Universe at Your Fingertips . Students might do
this by first making hypotheses about the order of the
Moon's phases, then charting the Moon's phase each day
over a month and modeling the Moon's phases using
styrofoam balls. Later, students might discuss their
observations of slides of Earth's Moon and the moons of
other planets, and experiment with craters by dropping
objects of different sizes into pans of flour or salt.
Then, students might design their own lunar colony, given
specific design constraints, or they might go on to
create a scale model of the entire solar system on the
school grounds.
Project ASTRO astronomers can play a role at various
stages of this unit: for example, they could set up a
telescope for daytime or nighttime Moon observations,
lead the whole class through the Moon-phase modeling
activity, show and discuss slides, or work with students
in small groups as they experiment with craters or design
their lunar colonies. The astronomers' role depends on
his or her interests, the teachers' interest, and both
partners' time availability.
Other Roles for Astronomers. In addition to
working directly with students, Project ASTRO astronomers
may play a number of other roles. These range from
helping teachers determine the scope and sequence of an
astronomy unit, arranging a field trip to an observatory
or other research institution, organizing school-wide
"star parties" for students and families,
providing training to other teachers in the school, or
presenting at school board meetings. Project ASTRO has
found that astronomers who remain involved in the project
often branch out from their original classroom visits to
take on more school or community projects in support of
science education.
Subsequent Years. Project ASTRO astronomers are
encouraged to continue working with their original
teacher partner in subsequent years. Many do continue
working with their first teacher (62% of those responding
in one summative evaluation); some are matched with a new
educator in the same school or in a new school.
