January 2012
Mr. Blackwell came to the AAS to present his team's posters and also
has rejoined NITARP as a mentor teacher this year, and has just
started with his new team. Please see the AAS 2012 page for a summary
of the AAS activities.
December 2011
Mr. Blackwell gave a presentation on Kepler at the McAuliffe-Shepard
Discovery Center.
August 2011
Mr. Blackwell visited IPAC in August 2011. Please see the Summer 2011 visits page for photos and
quotes.
August 2011
Mr. Blackwell writes:
Having to do with our Kepler light curve project, I have had an outreach
event and two in-school events. Here is the breakdown:
1) Outreach to general public at our school's observatory: 35 people in
attendance, all adults and equal gender mix. No idea on minority or
occupational breakdown. Topic was the project and why it is important in
terms of science and in terms of education. It was well received with
many questions about the future of astronomical research and the trends
toward data mining.
2) Talk given to the class of 1955 alumni at Phillips Exeter Academy:
some 70 people in attendance, all mature adults, 75% male, 25% female.
Same discussions as in #1 above.
3) In class discussions with students in my Observational Astronomy
class (Physics 393 astro-3) this past spring term. The class had 12
people, 4 girls, 8 boys. We spent the week (5x50minute classes) looking
at the project and the data in particular to get a better handle on
research methods in modern astronomy. While no conclusions were reached
in such a short time, the students got a thorough appreciation for the
project and helped to generate interest among those in astro-1 and 2.
January 2011
Mr. Blackwell will be joining a new NITARP team as a mentor teacher
this year. Please see
the AAS 2011 page for a
summary of the new class's activities.
October 2007 - January 2008
Mr Blackwell will be offering the Spitzer data set to students in the
spring term, so that they may use it in their final astronomy
projects. He plans to continue to offer his services to other schools,
planetariums and such when he goes for talks. Students and teachers
both see the need for continued programs like this in order to promote
science. Students learn more by doing... this has proven that once
again
July-September 2007
Mr. Blackwell gave a presentation at the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium
on August 31st to the general public. The talk combined general
information about the Spitzer Space Telescope, IR astronomy,
multiwavelength astronomy and the Star Formation project specifically.
He used a USB webcam to show IR light coming from remote control units
as well as the film, "Infrared - More than Your Eyes can See". This
was well received. Unfortunately the presentation was during the
Friday before the labor day long weekend, which kept attendance low.
Mr. Blackwell has been working with the Star Formation team on a
poster for presentation at the next American Astronomical Society
meeting. This poster will specifically address the educational aspects
of their project and how it has benefited students taking astronomy
programs.
April-June 2007
Mr. Blackwell worked with students in his Astronomy-I class to determine SFRs for all three galaxy
clusters and arrived at values consistent with those found by other team members.
Two sections of Astronomy-III which is a project based course for the advanced
students. Two students worked on morphology using the Spitzer data in combination
with the HST imagery also provided to the team. Results were presented to the class
and to the Science Department as a whole.
Phillips Exeter Academy has had its first of three astronomy conferences this past
week (last week in June). Please see for more information:
http://www.exeter.edu/Astronomy/4380_4634.aspx
This conference will be held again in two year's time and again in 2011. The goals
are to:
* Share their experiences as astronomy educators,
* Generate long-term collaborations between astronomy programs at various schools,
* Learn about changes to the science of astronomy and to astronomy education,
* Revitalize and refresh astronomy educators.
14 educators took part in the program (a full house) and shared their knowledge. The
Spitzer project was discussed quite a bit, as Mr. Blackwell presented the project goals and
results along with the pedagogical use of such projects. It was very well received.
From June 29, 2007 to July 2, 2007, Mr. Blackwell plans to be in Tucson with the new cohort of A-RBSE (formerly TLRBSE)
at NOAO sharing his experiences with the RBSE projects including the Spitzer work. He expects 14 new educators to
be present along with the NOAO educators, and scientists.
On August 25, 2007, Mr. Blackwell has plans with the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium in Concord, NH
to present the results of the Spitzer project to the public. Attendance can reach up to 90 people of all ages
and backgrounds. His goal will be to help the public appreciate the Spitzer telescope (celebrating its birthday)
and the project along with galactic cosmology.
January-March 2007
Data from the Star Formation Rates of galaxy clusters at different z: The team has all
the data now. The reduction has been completed. All the teachers in the group have
it through emails.
Analysis of the data continues on an individual basis although the team is having issues
with remaining fresh in communications.
Lessons in Mr. Blackwell's Astronomy-II class are now using some of the data for education about
IR wavelength astronomy. Students are particularly fond of images in particular -
less fond of the raw numeric data, as expected. He uses the images to grab their
attention and then help them explore the morphology of galaxies and the ideas of
gravitational attraction and such. This then leads to explanations of IR light, how
IR studies of galaxies help astronomers and what can be gleaned from that
information. Star formation rates are then brought to light along with AGNs and
their corruption of the data if they are present. Mr. Blackwell uses the ARBSE AGN project data
(FIRST quasar data) to allow students to explore that avenue.
Students then use all this information to answer such questions as: was there a
spike in overall star formation rates in our universe's past?
Talks to the New Hampshire Astronomical Society and the Christa McAuliffe
Planetarium (public) have gone well. The former drew 50+ people, mostly adults from
the local community. The latter drew 80 people with age ranges from 10 to adult.
Mr. Blackwell is focusing mainly on the topics of galactic IR astronomy, Spitzer, and what we have
learned by using it.
Future plans: Mr. Blackwell is running the first of three astronomy conferences for teachers
this June. He will be spending a day discussing the Spitzer project and IR astronomy
in the hopes of exciting the teachers into spending more time teaching other
wavelengths (other than visual). This conference is hosted by his school through a
private gift. The purpose is to promote astronomy education at the high school level
and to have a meeting of the minds for high school astronomy teachers. More
information is online at:
http://www.exeter.edu/Astronomy/4380_4634.aspx
September-December 2006
Mr. Blackwell's team are currently still awaiting final data products from the support scientists. They have completed reduction on one galaxy cluster of the three for which images were taken.
Mr. Blackwell has used the Spitzer project as a tool to teach to the points of multi-wavelength astronomy. The IR shows the dust and new star forming regions as well as those areas heated by young stars. His students are most interested in his experience as a teacher working with scientists. They are happy to see that scientists are "people too", with interesting and varied backgrounds. My students use the data in particular to study the specifics of IR astronomy on cosmological research. They are interested in the "age of things", the phenomena of red shift, and the idea that many things change over large amounts of time.
Mr. Blackwell has received funding for a summer secondary school conference in astronomy education. He will be using the Spitzer project and the TLRBSE project as major components of the meeting.
August 2006
Mr. Blackwell gave a presentation on August 18th to visitors of the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium in Concord, NH. Attending were people of all ages with a count of 75. More than half were local NH Astronomical Society members. The rest were general public. This was a presentation in two parts: A general overview of the SST and IR astronomy plus a review of our project.
Last spring, Mr. Blackwell introduced his astronomy students to multifrequency analysis of objects, including galaxies. They learned the value of IR work and gained an understanding of star formation rates and why that is an important thing to study.
Mr. Blackwell will continue to use the Spitzer project as a teaching tool for his students as an example of real life science research. He will also be presenting this to the local NH Science Teachers Association spring workshops (next June) and to other teachers at Phillips Exeter Academy this autumn as part of teacher workshop week. Next summer, they are planning an east coast astronomy educator's colloquium on astronomy education. He plans to use his Spitzer experience then as well.
June 2006
Mr. Blackwell's
group has completed its reading assignments (Galaxies in the Universe, Sparke) to cover the essential topics of galaxy cluster physics, morphology and photometric analysis. Each of the teachers has completed a report outlining the critical knowledge for the work they are doing and has sent that into Greg for reading. He is planning on getting back to us individually and as a group to confirm, reinforce, or alter our perceptions of the process.
Mr. Blackwell's spring term Astronomy-III course (most advanced) learned extensively about multi-wavelength astronomy with particular emphasis on the IR spectrum and telescopes such as the Spitzer. They worked on image analysis using prepared images from the SST institute.
Mr. Blackwell's school (Phillips Exeter Academy), placed a news brief about his involvement in the program on its press release site and on its webpages. Estimated audience: unknown, but many! Currently, this is listed online at:
http://www.exeter.edu/news_and_events/news_events_1999.aspx
He is scheduled to present to a group of up to 90 people this August at the local planetarium about the SST and the Spitzer star formation project in particular.
Mr. Blackwell reports that his students are very much fascinated by his efforts in astronomy outside of the classroom. They have followed the program with interest and eagerness to see results (which are forthcoming) later this summer. Their classroom studies of multi-wavelength astronomy have really broadened their minds as far as science. Much of what people learn up to this point (high school) is tangible. "Seeing the invisible" has made a great impact on them: now they can think outside the box, which makes them better scientists.
March 2006
Mr. Blackwell, along with the Star Formation group, has been reading the book Galaxies in the Universe: An Introduction by Linda S. Sparke and John S. Gallagher. They are then sending our notes of this reading to Gregory Rudnick for approval and clarification of any misconceptions regarding our Spitzer project.
He is also preparing his students and working with the local New Hampshire Astronomical Society and Christa McAuliffe Planetarium to schedule workshops and training events for teachers and the general public.
Mr. Blackwell's students have been given appropriate readings in Seeds' Horizons concerning multi-wavelength astronomical studies and infra-red studies in particular. They have also been reading appropriate materials on photometry which he has written and from sources such as the AAVSO and the book Galaxies in the Universe mentioned above. Also, this past month they completed a photometric study of an open cluster using our observatory and plotted an CM diagram of the cluster to note the main Sequence of the cluster and of the stars in the surrounding galactic arm of the Milky Way. It is not a photometric study of galaxy clusters, but it makes the point that many additional facts can be found in taking data across multiple wavelengths.
Mr. Blackwell's students are very interested in "seeing" in the IR. This is a totally new concept for most, if not all, of his students. He has presented the project to the students and shown them the value of IR studies, not only of galaxy clusters, but of many other astronomical objects: plates, asteroids, stars, interstellar medium, etc. Students have been excited by the prospect of working with real data: something that they always love. They are also more motivated by helping with real science.
January 2006
Mr. Blackwell attended the AAS meeting in Washington D.C..
He learned quite a bit via the talks by Gregory Rudnick concerning the IR studies of galaxy clusters. His astronomical studies have focused on cataclysmic variables, so galactic studies are quite new to me and a pleasure. Photometry in the IR of galaxies is all new to me. He learned a lot about the various methods used to calculate star birth rates using Spitzer (and other) data.
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
