NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program
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Other EPO programs using real data

Education & Outreach

Ardis Herrold Grosse Pointe North High School
Grosse Pointe, MI

October 2007 - January 2008

Ms. Herrold helped to develop a poster for AAS summarizing the results of the outreach and education efforts of 3 of the 6 teachers in her group. The other 2 teachers that worked on it are Rosa Hemphill and John Blackwell. Rosa and John were unable to attend the AAS, so she went to Austin on Jan. 7 and returned on Jan. 9.

The poster session was on Jan. 8. Ms.Herrold represented her group that day. In addition to talking about the poster, she informally met many of the Spitzer teachers from both the former groups and the new one. They shared reflections about the experience.

July-September 2007

Ms. Herrold and her student, Zak Schroeder, spent the nights of Sept. 21 and 22 with a Spitzer exhibit at the Astronomy at the Beach star party at Kensington Metropark near Milford, MI. They talked with people as they passed through the exhibits area. These were a mix of general public, lots of families, and also lots of amateur astronomers. They spent 4 hours on Friday and 5 hours on Staurday nights. Ms. Herrold estimates that they spoke with about 40-50 people in an engaged way, but many more (over a hundred) passed by and took casual looks or read part of the exhibit.

As a result of this Zak has been asked to give a talk to an amateur astronomy group and a class of advanced high school science students. In addition, he is being recruited by a physics professor to change majors and become a member of his department.

Ms. Herrold is currently working with two other members of her teacher group to put together a poster about Spitzer educational outreach to be presented at the AAS meeting this coming January in Austin. Zak will be there as well to present the results of his research with Spitzer.

April-June 2007

Zackery Schroeder (Ms. Herrold's student, now a graduated senior from Grosse Pointe North H.S.) presented the results of his Spitzer research at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair at Albuquerque, NM in May. He received a fourth place in the Physics & Astronomy division.

He has published his research in the RBSE Journal sponsored by NOAO, which will come out sometime this summer, I expect. He has also made a webpage of his research experience and results. It can be found on their class webpage under this link: http://staff.gpschools.org/herrola/webpages/Zak/index.htm

Zak will next be explaining his research at the Astronomy on the Beach event at Kensington Metropark in September. The estimated attendance there (for 2 days) is 2000, most of them general public.

January-March 2007

Ms. Herrold's Spitzer student has been working all year with Spitzer data and has entered several competitions recently. In early March, Zak Schroeder gave a 15 minute talk about his research at the SE Michigan Junior Science & Humanities Symposium to an audience of (about 30) high school students, teachers and some professors.

Last week, Zak participated in the regional science fair, and did well enough to qualify for the International Fair to be held this May in Albuquerque. His project title is "Galaxy Clusters: The Local Effects on Star Synthesis".

Zak was also interviewed by one of the local papers, the Grosse Pointe Times. The article was published on March 14.

September - December 2006

Ms. Herrold gave a talk at the Metro Detroit Science Teachers Association on ideas for teaching infrared astronomy and Spitzer on Oct. 21. It was an hour long and attended by about 45 people.

Ms. Herrold's student Zak Schroeder is continuing work with her on the galaxy cluster project. Zak is preparing to enter science fair with his research.

This fall Ms. Herrold has incorporated Spitzer into her 3 ninth grade Earth Science classes- a group in each class featured it in their multiwavelength observatories projects (impact: 90 students). She has also taught about it in her Astronomy class (20 students, grades 10-12).

May 2006

Ms. Herrold has finished reading and taking notes on the book that was sent to the Spitzer teachers for background reading. She has selected one student who will work on the project. She may select a second student.

April 2006

Ms. Herrold made a brief presentation about how her studnets had used the SOFIA infrared activities and three other IR inqiury activities in her astronomy class, and how she used them also with teachers. This was part of a session at the NSTA Anaheim Annual Conference on April 8 entitled "Teachers, Students, and the Spitzer Space Telescope".

March 2006

Ms. Herrold is preparing for her Spitzer work by reading the textbook that was sent to her, and working with 3 potential students who may be more directly involved with the research once they get further along. She is the educational lead for the proposal. Ms. Herrold is preparing for her first teacher workshop on March 26 (4.5 hours). She publicized the program through the Michigan Earth Science Teachers Association and her astronomy contacts. Ms. Herrold has also lined up 3 speaking events at astronomy groups and star parties and 2 teacher workshops so far.

Ms. Herrold's students in Advanced Astronomy have experimented with all the components of the SOFIA kit for 3 class periods. In addition, they developed two other experiments. On Saturday, March 25, they hosted a workshop, "Stalking the Infrared Universe", at their school (Grosse Pointe North High School, Grosse Pointe, MI). It was attended by 18 teachers from across southern Michigan. They ranged in teaching from 5th-9th grades, and 1 pre-service teacher also attended. Six were district teachers.

The workshop was from 9:30- 2:00, with lunch provided courtesy of the Michigan Earth Science Teachers Association, who also helped to publicize the workshop. Officer Mark Agnetti of the Grosse Pointe Woods Fire Department brought a thermal imaging camera and teachers used it for about an hour to do experiments of their own design. In addition, teachers rotated through 7 stations doing experiments with infrared light. All were provided with a CD of activities and images. The day concluded with a 45 minute planetarium presentation about infrared astronomy and the Spitzer Space Telescope. Four of Ms. Herrold's astronomy students helped out for the day.

January 2006

Ms. Herrold attended the AAS meeting in Washington D.C. where she met program team members, learned about her project from Greg Rudnick, and reviewed basic infrared astronomy. She found the brief overview of Spitzer's niche in the research world and its capabilities very useful.

Ms. Herrold screened the potential student candidates down to 3 based on their ability and work ethic. She also presented a talk to 20 students on Spitzer and infrared astronomy at an after school astronomy club meeting in January.



Jeff Adkins | John Blackwell | Jacqueline Barge | Christopher Border | Kareen Borders | Robert Bonadurer | Merrill Butler | Lauren Chapple | Joseph Childers | Howard Chun | Wendy Curtis | Richard DeCoster | Stacy DeVeau | Harlan Devore | Cris DeWolf | Velvet Dowdy | Thomas Doyle | Dean Drumheller | Debbie Edwards | Mike Ford | Debbie French | John Gibbs | Peter Guastella | Rosa Hemphill | Ardis Herrold | Vivian Hoette | Chelen Johnson | Virginia Jones | Adam Keeton | Susan Kelly | Marcella Linahan | Thomas Loughran | Carolyn Mallory | Anthony Maranto | Christoper Martin | Kevin McCarron | Matthew McCutcheon | David McDonald | Shefali Mehta | Cindy Melton | Kate Meredith | Lauren Novatne | Kathryn O'Connor | Caroline Odden | Jeffrey Paradis | Vincent Pereira | Helen Petach | Peggy Piper | Peter Pitman | Elizabeth Ramseyer | Steve Rapp | Theresa Roelofsen Moody | Denise Rothrock | Diane Sartore | John Schaefers | Sally Seebode | Babs Sepulveda | Timothy Spuck | Darryl Stanford | Linda Stefaniak | Dwight Taylor | Jennifer Tetler | Beth Thomas | Cynthia Weehler | Lynne Zielinski

Funding for NITARP comes from the NASA ADP program and NASA/Archive EPO program.

Questions? E-mail nitarp -- at -- ipac DOT caltech DOT edu