October-December 2006
Mr. Devore currently has a Research in Science student who is creating and comparing color magnitude diagrams of NGC 6791 from HST with color-color diagrams from Spitzer IRAC images.
On Sep 21st, Mr. Devore gave a presentation on his groups's research to three Astronomy Dept
faculty at Fayetteville State University and to a half dozen interested members of the public (high school students, college students, and parents). The presentation followed an open house at the FSU observatory.
On Sep 30th, Mr. Devore gave a 15 minute presentation at the Fall Conference of the North Carolina Section American Association of Physics Teachers and NC Astronomical Association. Approximately 50 people attended, including both physics and astronomy professors, as well as a few high school teachers. His topic was "Astronomy Research at Cape Fear High School". Included in the presentation was an overview of his team's Spitzer project and its findings. After the meeting, an astonomy/physics professor from Meredith College (Raleigh, NC) approached
Mr. Devore and asked him to assist in setting up an Astronomy research course at Meredith. Mr. Devore met with the professor in October and taught him how to use image processing software. Mr. Devore advised him about the curriculum, software, textbooks, and suggested some possible student projects and class projects. He has enrolled five students in the course for the spring semester. In mid-January, Mr. Devore will be meeting with his students to train them on software they will need for one of their class projects.
June-September 2006
On June 27, 2006, Mr. Devore gave a power point presentation at the Hands-On Universe
conference at Yerkes Observatory on the topic "Student Research at Cape Fear High School". Included in the presentation were the results of his Spitzer project "The Supermassive Blackhole in ARP 102B", the discovery of three new supernovae, and recovery and measurement of 25 Near Earth Objects (NEOs). The conference was attended by about 30 people -- scientists, astronomy professors, and high school teachers His presentation was enthusiastically received and he received an invitation to present it at the Global Hands-On Universe conference.
In mid-August, Mr. Devore attended the GHOU Conferenece in France, and again presented "Student Research at Cape Fear High School". The conference was attended by about 50 people from 15 countries --mostly university level astronomy educators. Several said that the presentation was one of the highlights of the conference.
Mr. Devore has been invited to give the presentation to his local school board next month, although the date has not been scheduled. Mr. Devore is also scheduled to give the presentation to the Fayetteville Astronomical Society at their monthly meeting on Sep 28th, and again on Sep 30th at the North Carolina Section of the American Association of Physics Teachers.
March 2006
In early March, Mr. Devore discovered a supernova in the galaxy cluster Abell 1068.
As a result, he was interviewed by a reporter from the Fayetteville Observer,
and by a TV newsteam from NBC-17 in Raleigh. He used the opportunity to discuss
the Spitzer Teachers Research Program. Unfortunately, that part of the
interview was edited out of the newscast.
Mr. Devore is currently working on classroom modules that will allow teachers and
students to duplicate some parts of our research analysis on ARP 102B as classroom
activities. He plans to test the first modules on his AP Physics class on April
4th. After classroom testing, Mr. Devore will make the modules available through the
Spitzer public outreach website.
Three of Mr. Devore's Research in Science students are doing projects that involve
analysis of galactic spectral lines and line ratios using SDSS data. Work with
the ARP 102B data has provided him with analysis tools needed to assist his
students with these projects.
Participation of Mr. Devore's students in the program has become a source of pride for
their school. Articles in the Fayetteville Observer and in the Hoofbeat (their
school newspaper) have widely publicized the program in their community. Brian
and Katie, the students involved in the ARP 102B project are both doing
astronomy research projects this year. The interest in doing hands-on Astronomy
projects has grown to the point that Mr. Devore is considering offering an after-school
course in astronomy next year for students who would otherwise have to wait
outside -- sometimes for several hours -- for a parent to come and pick them up
after work.
January 2006
At the January 2006 AAS conference in Washington, DC, Mr. Devore presented his poster.
Several project officers from other future space telescope projects and from
SOFIA came by to discuss the Spitzer Teacher's Research program. Perhaps the
highpoint of the poster presentation came when a scientist who has studied
ARP102B for many years stopped by. The scientist introduced himself and began to read the
poster. Several times he nodded and said, "This is good work". He asked a
lot of questions. Eventually, the scientist asked a question that Mr. Devore couldn't answer, and
Mr. Devore explained that he was a high school teacher, not a scientist. The scientist then said, "I
would never have guessed!".
Later, an editor for the ASP educational outreach newsletter came by and
asked Mr. Devore to do an article for her publication on the Spitzer Teachers Research
Program. Mr. Devore plans to do this after the school year is over.
December 2005
In early December 2005, Ranga-Ram Chary provided Mr. Devore with clean
spectral data from the Spitzer IRS observations of ARP102B. During December,
Dr. Chary guided him through the process of analyzing the spectral lines, measuring
velocity offsets, fitting Gaussian curves, and measuring line fluxes. They
measured and calculated diagnostic line ratios and analyzed spectral energy
distributions. After completing the spectral analysis, Mr. Devore created a poster for the
January 2006 AAS Convention in Washington DC. Concurrently, Dr. Chary drafted an
article on their findings for the Astrophysical Journal.
Key findings from their analysis included: 1) discovery of double peaked
molecular hydrogen lines, indicative of a ring of molecular H2 orbiting the
supermassive blackhole at a distance of ~ 1 parsec. 2) completing the total spectral
energy distribution for ARP 102B's nucleus by creating the missing component
-- the IR energy distribution. 3) Using diagnostic line ratios and the total
SED to build a strong case for the underlying energy production mechanisms in
this AGN.
November 2005
On Nov 11, 2005, Mr. Devore gave a power point presentation called "Seeing the
Universe in Another Light" at the North Carolina Science Teachers Association
fall convention. About 30 teachers were present. He had participants work
through the first activity in the NASA Multiwavelength Educational Outreach
Activities. Mr. Devore then outlined and demonstrated the other four activites. In
addition, he outlined the mission and capabilities of Spitzer, provided
information on
how to access and view Spitzer images, and described the Spitzer Teacher
Program. Each participant was provided a CD-ROM with a copy of his power
point and
the instructions needed for the five NASA activities.
August 2005
At the Hands-On Universe Conference at Yerkes Observatory in
mid-August, Mr. Devore presented an overview of the Spitzer Telescope, its
instruments and capabilities, and how to use Leopard to retrieve
images. He used DS9 software to show samples of MIPS and IRAC images. In
addition, he described the Spitzer Teachers Program and gave an overview
the ARP102B project.
The audience of about 30 people included scientists,
astronomy professors, and high school teachers. Most were Teacher
Resource Agents
(TRAs) -- teacher trainers for HOU. Three of the teachers present were also
graduates of the TLRBSE or RBSE programs.
The presentation is in power point and is available
for other teachers who want to clone it.
Mr. Chapple used Spot to create a list of background flux (in MJY/sr) vs
wavelength for our target area. Mr. Devore coordinated with Dr. Chary and
got the
pixel width of the spectral extraction area from each of our .fits
images. He set up a spreadsheet, using platescale to convert the pixel
area of each extraction into solid angles (in sr). He then multiplied it
by the integration time (in s) and used that to factor the background
flux. Unfortunately, the background flux numbers he is getting are still
too large - larger than the signal flux. In the next few days, Mr. Devore
plans to
go over his work again to see if he can figure out what he did wrong. If he
can't, he will ask Dr. Chary to review his calculations.
Mr. Devore's student Katie has recently finished identification of lines in a second set of
spectra. They are finding quite a few lines that just don't match any of
the common spectral lines found in AGNs. They suspect that the lines may be
significantly Doppler shifted. If so, the torus region does not seem to
be homogeneous because there is not a matching line that is shifted in the
other direction for most of these lines.
Mr. Devore's student Brian elected to take his Astronomy class rather than the Research in
Science class. As a result, he will be playing a much smaller role in the
analysis because he will not have much class time to work on it.
Future Plans
During April 2006, Mr. Devore will be testing ARP 102B spectral analysis modules
that he is creating in his Astronomy, Physics, and AP Physics classes. He will
also be using components of the SOFIA curriculum with his Physical Science and
Physics class as they cover light and electromagnetic radiation curriculum in about
two weeks.
In May, Mr. Devore's Research in Science students will be presenting their research
projects at the monthly meeting of the Fayetteville Astronomical Society. At
that time, Mr. Devore and his students Brian and Katie, will also be presenting the ARP 102B Spitzer
project.
Mr. Devore is working on scheduling a system-wide professional development on IR for the school Year 2005-2006 with the help of Jami Inman, the Science Coordinator for their school system. The "IR in the Classroom" training will be combined with other science training sessions as part of the continuing education unit credits.
Mr. Devore is currently working with his school system's science curriculum
coordinator to have a Saturday workshop in Feb 06 for science teachers
from 11
high schools. One of the sessions at the workshop will be similar to his
"Seeing the Universe in Another Light" presentation.
He expects to present the ARP102B project at the NC Section - American
Association of Physics Teachers spring convention in Mar 06.
Publicity
On Aug 4, 2005, Mr. Devore's local paper, The Fayetteville Observer published an
article featuring his two students--Brian and Katie -- and Mr. Devore and their
ARP102B
project. The newspaper has a circulation of about 70,000.
The school newspaper, The Hoofbeat, ran a front page article on the ARP102B
project in its October 2005 issue. The newspaper reaches about 1500 students
and 120 teachers.
Jeff Adkins
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John Blackwell
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Jacqueline Barge
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Christopher Border
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Kareen Borders
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Robert Bonadurer
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Merrill Butler
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Lauren Chapple
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Joseph Childers
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Howard Chun
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Wendy Curtis
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Richard DeCoster
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Stacy DeVeau
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Harlan Devore
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Cris DeWolf
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Velvet Dowdy
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Thomas Doyle
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Dean Drumheller
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Debbie Edwards
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Mike Ford
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Debbie French
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John Gibbs
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Peter Guastella
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Rosa Hemphill
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Ardis Herrold
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Vivian Hoette
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Chelen Johnson
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Virginia Jones
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Adam Keeton
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Susan Kelly
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Marcella Linahan
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Thomas Loughran
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Carolyn Mallory
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Anthony Maranto
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Christoper Martin
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Kevin McCarron
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Matthew McCutcheon
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David McDonald
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Shefali Mehta
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Cindy Melton
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Kate Meredith
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Lauren Novatne
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Kathryn O'Connor
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Caroline Odden
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Jeffrey Paradis
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Vincent Pereira
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Helen Petach
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Peggy Piper
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Peter Pitman
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Elizabeth Ramseyer
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Steve Rapp
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Theresa Roelofsen Moody
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Denise Rothrock
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Diane Sartore
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John Schaefers
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Sally Seebode
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Babs Sepulveda
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Timothy Spuck
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Darryl Stanford
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Linda Stefaniak
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Dwight Taylor
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Jennifer Tetler
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Beth Thomas
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Cynthia Weehler
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Lynne Zielinski
