January-March 2007:
In January 2007, Ms. Roelofsen Moody attended the AAS/AAPT convention and, along
with other Spitzer teachers, presented two posters: "Spitzer Space Telescope
Research Program for Teachers and Students: Using Spitzer data in your classroom
with (relatively) simple software"; and "Spitzer Observations of YSO's in the Witch
Head Nebula (IC 2118)" , The former included instructions for high school teachers
wishing to use MaximDL in their classroom, as well as an Excel spreadsheet to help
convert measured values obtained in MaximDL to Flux and/Magnitudes. In addition,
she traveled, along with other Spitzer teachers, as well as Dr. Varoujan Gorjian and
Dr. Luisa Rebull, to take spectra at Palomar of specific stars within the IC2118
region.
With the assistance of Dr. Thomas Jordan at Ball State University, Ms. Roelofsen
Moody was able to acquire some time on the 0.9 SARA telescope at Kitt Peak. This
data (again of regions within IC2118), at primarily H Alpha wavelengths, has been
partially reduced, but requires some more work. Stay tuned.
Along with the help of Dr. Rebull, Ms. Roelofsen Moody has been working on a Spitzer
Teacher WIKI site, that would include information for all students and teachers
involved in the Spitzer Teacher Observing Program. The Spitzer Student Handbook has
been added to the WIKI, and more work will continue. Once the sections on M81 and
IC2118 are complete on the WIKI, the plan is to invite other Spitzer teachers
(involved in other projects) to start using the WIKI and adding to it with their
students.
Since leaving the classroom in June 2006, Ms. Roelofsen Moody has been involved in
Spitzer Outreach in a slightly different way. She now works at the New Jersey
Astronomy Center for Education (at Raritan Valley Community College) where she
teaches a variety of Teacher Professional Development workshops in Astronomy. These
include teaching teachers about light/color and the electromagnetic spectrum, as
well as gravity, galaxies and stellar evolution. Although Spitzer material is not
specifically used in those workshops, Ms. Roelofsen Moody tries to incorporate it
where and whenever possible. She is also trying to obtain materials from the SSC to
give to participating teachers during those workshops.
Lastly, Ms. Roelofsen Moody began working as a Volunteer Astronomer through Project
ASTRO since March 2007. She now volunteers in a fourth grade classroom in
Mountainside, NJ. So far, she has made one visit to the class where she talked
about her work with Spitzer, how space telescopes work, and what types of research
she has been doing with the telescope. She plans to return to the same school and
classroom several times over the course of the 2006-7 school year.
September 2006
Ms. Roelofsen Moody just moved to New Jersey from Connecticut and started working at
the New Jersey Astronomy Center for Education, where she will be running a variety of
workshops. The first one will be on October 3rd. This is the Intro to Hands-on
Astronomy 1 and it will mainly cover material related to the Earth, Sun and Moon as
well as the scale of the solar system. The second workshop will be on October 25th.
This is Intro to Hands-on Astro 2 and it will mainly cover Stars, Galaxies and the
Universe. She expects that she will have much more opportunity to encorporate Spitzer
material into the second of these two workshops. Ms. Roelofsen Moody will have 3 more workshops in
November/December. She expects each workshop will have an enrollment of 10-20
teachers, who will be K-12 teachers from various nearby districts in New Jersey.
Ms. Roelofsen Moody hopes to continue research on both IC2118 and M81. She
would love to find ways to incorporate Spitzer and/or infrared material into most of
her upcoming workshops. She is exploring the possibility of designing a separate
workshop specific to Infrared Astronomy.
November 2005:
On November 8th, Ms. Roelofsen ran an Astronomy workshop for 30 middle school
teachers that all teach in the Bridgeport District. It was 3 hours
long and she had them do activities that they can use in their science
classes, as well as demonstrated other activities.
April 2005:
Ms. Roelofsen has been teaching the electromagnetic spectrum to her students and trying to select who the
Spitzer team leaders will be.
She took a group of 10 students to see the CHANDRA X-Ray observatory control room (in Harvard, MA)-
where they learned plenty about satellite telescopes and non-visible wavelength imaging!
Also, Ms. Kaye Sullivan (RBSE 2000) and she received a grant to buy a Starlab. They plan to train students to
use the planetarium and teach other students.
March 2005:
Ms. Roelofsen has been working on two grants this month; one for a portable planetarium (STARLAB) and the other for a renewal of her PISCES Interdistrict Grant (with two other districts). The first grant would allow her to select several students leaders and train them to use the planetarium for presentations. These are the same students leaders that will join her in Pasadena and become data analysis 'experts' with the Spitzer data. If at least one of the grants are accepted, it will help her to share the Spitzer data with other students in other school districts!
She also has planned a trip to Chandra X-Ray Observatory Center in Boston for her PISCES students (which includes a pool of PISCES student leaders from three different school districts). She would like to familiarize them with satellite-based observatories as well as non-visual wavelength astronomical data. The trip will be April 22, 2005.
Future Plans
Ms. Roelofsen and Ms. Sullivan will offer training seminars for teachers as
well as Professional Development on light, astronomy, Spitzer etc., next year.
Ms. Roelofsen is planning several workshops for elementary and middle school
teachers in September 2005
Ms. Roelofsen will be presenting several workshops to middle school teachers
within the district (ever the course of the entire year). These workshops
will be about heat, Infrared Astronomy and space in general. She will delay
presentations at AAS and NSTA until all of the data for the M81 project is in.
In terms of the IC 2118 project, she will try to attend the AAS meeting in
January so that she can be a part of the Educational and Scientific Poster
presentations there.
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
