Grids for Kids - training the innovators of tomorrow (fwd)

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 08:04:38 -0400 (EDT)
> From: chodge5 () utk edu
> To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
>
>
>
> This is something else you might be interested in forwarding to
> IP.....It's nice occasionally to hear about something that's *not*
> depressing.
>
> -c
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2003 16:24:47 -0400 (EDT)
> From: CAnet-NEWS () canarie ca
> Subject: [news] Grids for Kids - training the innovators of tomorrow
>
> For more information on this item please visit the CANARIE CA*net 4 Optical
> Internet program web site at http://www.canarie.ca/canet4/library/list.html
> -------------------------------------------
>
> [It has been long recognized that innovation is one of the prime drivers 
> of increased productivity and economic growth.  In turn, science and 
> engineering education is one of the important contributors in the 
> schooling and training of the innovators of tomorrow. Yet despite that 
> well known connection, enrolment in science and engineering programs 
> continues to decline and it still remains a challenge to entice larger 
> representation from women and minority groups to enrol in these 
> programs.  Part of the problem is the difficulty in making science and 
> engineering "real" and exciting for high school and university students.
>
> The following news article is a great example where researchers at 
> universities and government labs are working with educators to build 
> programs and programs where students can be participants in real 
> scientific research projects. With the latest developments in networks, 
> grids and peer to peer distributed computing, what some have come to call 
> the Third Wave of the Internet,  there is no reason why many other 
> research programs could be expanded not only to tap into the computing 
> resources at our schools, but also to engage and excite the bright young 
> minds in leading edge research and discovery.  Virtual astronomical 
> observatories, remote access to electronic telescopes, protein matching, 
> and digital transmission from telescopes like the Faulkes project are all 
> early examples of the potential of this technology.  For more examples 
> please see http://www.canarie.ca/canet4/library/general/escience_jan2003.ppt
>
> National governments  generally do not play much of a role in education 
> which is usually a state or provincial responsibility. But national 
> governments are usually the primary funders of most research in 
> universities as well as government laboratories. National government could 
> possibly play a critical role in the early stages of science and 
> engineering education by facilitating and enabling a greater degree of 
> involvement by researchers and students through programs like "Grids for 
> Kids" using high speed networks and distributed peer to peer computing and 
> many other related tools.  National government labs have been the 
> instrument of many different policy directions in the past from industrial 
> development to solving regional disparity.  Maybe now they can also have a 
> role in addressing the critical challenge of science and engineering 
> education from grade school through to university.
>
> The following Faulkes Telescope project is one great example of such 
> activity. -- BSA]
>
>
> HE FAULKES TELESCOPE PROJECT
> NEWSLETTER #4
> August 2003
>
> - Introduction
>
> This is the fourth newsletter from the Faulkes Telescope Project and aims
> to give potential users of the telescopes up-to-date information on what is
> happening.
>
> The Faulkes Telescope Project is building two large astronomical
> telescopes, to be located in Hawaii and Australia, which will be dedicated
> to use by school students. Because of the position of the telescopes they
> will be available for direct use in real-time during the UK school day. The
> principal project sponsor is the Dill Faulkes Educational Trust.
>
> A .pdf version of this newsletter with images can be found at
> http://www.faulkes-telescope.com/newsletter4.htm
>
> - Status of the Telescopes
>
> The first Faulkes Telescope (FT North) is now nearing completion on the
> mountain of Haleakala in Hawaii. First light on the telescope took place on
> the 7th August and the first science camera images are expected later the
> same month.
>
> FT North will be used with initial schools later this year and more
> generally from January 2004. Schools registrations will be opened this autumn.
>
> The second, identical telescope (FT South) in now being packed in
> Birkenhead, where it was manufactured, and will be shipped to its
> Australian site in September. It will be operational later in 2004.
>
> Images of the FTN telescope and its enclosure can be seen on the project
> web site, www.faulkes-telescope.com.
>
> - UK Government Dept. for Education and Skills funds FT Project
>
> Following meetings between the FT project and senior staff at the DfES,
> Dill Faulkes, Richard Beare and Paul Roche gave a presentation to the then
> Minister for Further and Higher Education, Margaret Hodge. The Minister was
> clearly impressed with the project, and as a result we have secured
> substantial funds from the DfES to assist with the first three years of
> operations.
>
> The DfES was particularly keen that the Project should develop proper
> Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and educational programmes to
> support teachers in their use of the telescopes, and so Richard Beare (at
> Warwick Univ.) and David Bowdley (Abraham Darby School, Telford) will be
> working on this aspect of the FT project over the next three years.
>
> David and Richard report later in this newsletter on progress with some of
> the exciting "education/research" projects that are planned for the start
> of FT North operations.
>
> - National Schools Observatory
>
> The Faulkes Telescope project has agreed with Liverpool John Moores
> University that the UK Schools use of the Faulkes Telescopes and the
> Liverpool Telescope will be coordinated via the portal
> www.schoolsobservatory.org.uk. This is intended to make it easier for
> schools to access all three telescopes.
>
> - Asteroid Hunting with the Faulkes Telescopes
>
> The Faulkes Telescope Near Earth Object (NEO) Follow-up Education/Research
> Project has made excellent progress and all the major elements are now in
> place to launch this project when the first Faulkes Telescope is available
> in the Autumn of 2003.
>
> Teacher training programmes are well advanced in their development stage
> and the first schools will be approached about joining this project as
> Development Partners in the new academic year (September 2003). Agreement
> has been reached with the Minor Planet Center (MPC) in the USA that results
> from schools using the Faulkes Telescopes will be accepted by them as
> genuine scientific data. The software to be used is Astrometrica
> (http://www.astrometrica.at/) and we have negotiated a license agreement to
> allow us access to this free of charge.
>
> Schools will be able to use the Faulkes Telescopes to image asteroids that
> pose a possible collision threat with the Earth or to image other
> interesting NEOs. After performing image analysis Schools can then report
> their data to the MPC who will use them to refine the orbit for the
> asteroid.  The MPC may also on occasion request through the FT project that
> a school make an urgently needed observation of an NEO that has a
> particularly worrying preliminary orbit that could bring it close to the
> Earth.  Schools making any observations of NEOs and reporting them to the
> MPC will have their names published in the MPC electronic circulars that
> are published daily.
>
> What is special about schools using the FTs for their NEO observation work
> is that they will be using two of the largest astronomical telescope
> anywhere in the World that are doing this kind of work on a regular
> basis.  Using large telescopes will mean that FT schools can image
> asteroids that are much fainter than those that can be accessible to
> amateur astronomers - this puts FT schools in an enviable position.
>
> It is also possible that in the process of making their observations
> schools could also discover new asteroids.  In this case, sometime in the
> future, they would get the right to name their discovery!
>
> We are also pleased to inform you that the principal scientific advisors
> for these projects are as follows:
>
> NEO Follow-up:  Jay Tate of The Spaceguard Centre (www.spaceguarduk.com)
> Asteroid Rotation and Classification: Dr Alan Fitzsimmons (Queen's
> University, Belfast)
>
> For further information about the asteroid projects contact
> david.bowdley () faulkes-telescope com.
>
> - Other Education Projects using the Faulkes Telescopes
>
> In addition to the asteroid projects work has progressed on several other
> projects for schools.  These include imaging and measuring galaxies,
> finding the ages of star clusters by plotting colour-magnitude diagrams,
> studying variable stars, imaging interacting galaxies, and imaging
> planetary nebulae (the beautiful shells of glowing gas surrounding stars
> that have recently run out of nuclear fuel and are now losing their outer
> layers out into space).
>
> We have called these projects "education/research" projects because
> they  involve students doing investigations which produce new scientific
> data as well as being educational.  In some cases the new data consists of
> a high quality image.  It may be surprising to learn, for example, that
> very few of the thousands of nearby galaxies have ever been imaged with the
> sort of resolution and image quality that the Faulkes Telescopes are
> capable of. Over time, images of galaxies obtained by schools will build up
> into a scientifically valuable digital catalogue for the use of
> professional astronomers, as well as giving individual schools and students
> the kudos of seeing their names associated with the best images ever taken
> of 'their' galaxies (or planetary nebulae, or interacting galaxies), and
> these will be publicly available on the Faulkes website for all the world
> to admire, and - who knows? - some of them may eventually find their way
> into a coffee table book along the lines of those containing Hubble images.
>
> For the telescopes to be used to their full educational potential, however,
> projects must involve more than just imaging - educationally interesting
> and valuable as that is.  It is important that scientific conclusions
> should be drawn and/or measurements made using the images obtained.  Take a
> spiral galaxy for example.  There is a wealth of scientific information
> that students can obtain by carefully observing an image - the blue spiral
> arms are regions containing recently-formed, massive, hot, blue stars.  The
> central bulge contains yellowish stars which are both cooler and
> older.  Understanding how we can deduce this ties in with the work to be
> found in most syllabuses on the life cycles of stars, and just how much
> detail students go into can depend on their age, ability and educational
> stage, so that the same project can be adapted for use at a wide range of
> different levels.
>
> However we believe that it is important, at any level, that students do
> some 'real' science, in the sense that they are not just repeating set
> procedures with known answers as with many traditional school
> 'experiments'.  It is important to use the telescopes to encourage students
> to think for themselves and to have a sense of ownership of the projects
> that they undertake.  This is helped by the fact that in most cases the
> observations and/or measurements will be new (as already explained) so that
> students will be able to talk about 'my galaxy' or 'my asteroid'.
>
> To encapsulate this idea of doing real science, the project has adopted the
> catch phrase 'Real time, real science, real scientists'.  The third part of
> this is the involvement of professional astronomers and in all projects the
> original ideas for useful investigations have come from them as well as
> ongoing involvement as needed.
>
> Returning to the topic of galaxies, three different but interrelated
> projects are now effectively finished (and these can be viewed on the
> Faulkes website, along with the asteroid projects - click the 'Education'
> link and then the re-direction link, followed by the link to the list of
> projects).  The first project is essentially an imaging project in which
> the science consists of linking detailed observations of a galaxy with
> underlying scientific processes and then classifying the galaxy according
> to the Hubble Classification.  The second project involves measuring the
> spiral arms of galaxies - measuring out how tightly wound they are, how
> large the central bulge is in relation to the overall disc, and so on, and,
> again, these quantitative measurements are related to the Hubble
> Classification.  A special spiral arm measuring tool has been developed
> using Microsoft Excel and this makes it very easy for students to make
> accurate measurements quickly and easily.  The third project involves
> plotting the surface brightnesses of galaxies along lines through their
> centres and correlating features in the graphs (such as peaks) with
> features in the images (such as spiral arms).  For advanced level students
> the surface brightness profiles can be analysed quantitatively, again
> making use of specially developed and easy-to-use spreadsheet tools.
>
> - Image Processing Software
>
> Considerable time has been devoted to finding and trying out suitable
> software for use with the Faulkes Telescopes.  Astrometrica has already
> been mentioned for asteroid work.  For general imaging we are recommending
> some free software called Iris
> (http://www.astrosurf.com/buil/us/iris/iris.htm).  This has been used
> successfully in Australia with children as young as primary age, but is
> capable of doing most of the image processing work that is needed for
> Faulkes projects.
>
> For those who need to study imaging in more depth (because their syllabus
> demands it for example) or who are simply interested in learning more, we
> are recommending the excellent 'The Handbook of Astronomical Image
> Processing' by Berry and Burnell.  This costs in the region of £78 in the
> UK but is well worth the investment because it is accompanied by a CD-ROM
> containing the equally excellent software package 'Astronomical Image
> Processing for Windows' - AIP4WIN for short.  For plotting surface
> brightness profiles another piece of free software is recommended, DS9. For
> further details of the recommended software consult the education page of
> the Faulkes Telescope website.
>
> - Development Partner Schools
>
> It has already been mentioned that a small number of schools will be acting
> as 'Development Partners' with the Faulkes Telescope Project from this
> autumn, trying out the educational projects and providing feedback, once
> the Hawaiian telescope is in its initial phase of operation.  Once this
> telescope has been 'commissioned' and is fully operational after Christmas
> it is hoped that a much larger number of schools will choose to become
> involved in the initial pilot phase, which we envisage lasting for a year
> or more.  If you are interested in being involved as a Development Partner,
> please email paul.roche () faulkes-telescope com.
>
> - Telescopes in Education
>
> Paul Roche continues the PPARC National Award programme, "Telescopes in
> Education", which has been extended to run until spring 2004. Recent events
> saw Paul visiting Durham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Hampshire, and talking to
> around 80 primary school teachers and PGCE students at the Univ. of
> Kingston, 30 secondary science teachers in Cambridge, and an entire primary
> school in Cardiff, promoting robotic and real-time astronomy.
>
> He has recently developed a "whole school" project for primary schools
> involving the Sun, as an introduction to the more sophisticated(?!)
> projects envisaged by the National Schools Observatory and the FT project.
> This was successfully piloted (despite typically cloudy Welsh July weather)
> at Birchgrove Primary School in Cardiff, with children from ages 5 to 11
> taking part in a range of activities covering day/night, seasons, scale and
> size of the  Solar system, the Sun as a star, light, shadows, time,
> religion and observing sunspots!
>
> - Dill Faulkes revisits old school
>
> On June 26th, Dill Faulkes was the guest of honour at the prize giving
> evening for his old school. John Cleveland Community College in Hinckley
> was the Hinckley Grammar School when Dill attended, and he found that much
> of the old site had disappeared, although a few familiar landmarks
> remained. During the day, pupils at the school received talks from Paul
> Roche, Lucie Green (Univ. of Glamorgan) and Anastasia Pappa (National Space
> Centre, Leicester) on various aspects of astronomy and space science.
>
> - Join the Project
>
> If you want to become involved in the Project as a teacher or student user,
> or in other ways, please contact us at the e-mail address below.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> For further information contact paul.roche () faulkes-telescope com
>
> Project Web site:
> www.faulkes-telescope.com
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The Faulkes Telescope project partners in the UK are the Dill Faulkes
> Educational Trust, the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, the
> University of Leicester and the National Space Centre, Leicester, Liverpool
> John Moores University and the Royal Observatory Greenwich. The Department
> for Education and Skills is providing funding.
>
> The overseas partners are the University of Hawaii, and in Australia, the
> Australian National University, Swinburne University of Technology and the
> Anglo-Australian Observatory.
>
>
>
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>
> -------------------------------------
>
> These news items and comments are mine alone and do not necessarily 
> reflect those  of the CANARIE board or management.
>
>
>
> ----------
> Bill.St.Arnaud () Canarie ca
> starnau () attglobal net
> www.canarie.ca/~bstarn

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