Report #2 from ASP Meeting

By Aaron on September 18, 2006 at 11:26 pm | In Blog Posts |

The talks I attended Sunday were of an introductory nature so I didn’t really learn much. But they were good for that level and for the limited time the speakers were allotted. A positive exception was Dr. Ed Prather’s talk. For 30 minutes he challenged educators to not just throw stuff at the audience but to also assess and evaluate the program to make sure real learning is occuring. He suggested more contextual learning and student centered discourse in the classroom. As someone new to the education research field, I’m very interested in hearing different points of view and where the perceved weaknesses in the field are. I am seeking permission to play snippets of his talk in an upcoming SG podcast and discuss it with our own Dr. Doug Welch, who is an E/PO professional as well. So stay tuned.

The afternoon plenary session was devoted to a producer of the Nova series on PBS. Nova has held a special place in my heart because it was the best (and usually only) place to go for quality, in depth science coverage on television as I grew up. But now there are tons of (self described) science channels, web sites, podcasts, CD-ROMs, etc. And I think Nova must be feeling the heat because their shows are not what they used to be. The talk was an example of that. It was nothing but a long series of commercials for Nova. The speaker (a producer) would read a script for a minute or two and then show a 5 minute clip of a show, including advertisements for the upcoming season which was dominated by high energy “re-enactments” of airplane crashes, explosions, etc. It reminded me much more of a trailor for “Final Destination” than a science show. The speaker could have been talking to an advertising convention and not changed a bit of her presentation. And I wasn’t alone in this sentiment.

The American Museum of Natural History in New York has built a truly amazing planetarium system over the past decade and they showed us more of what is to come. They are focusing on using real data in their presentations, live when possible. For example, when they give a show they will sometimes connect with others around the world, interview them live and show (on the dome) the night sky of the person they are speaking with. One person they may sometimes pipe in live is Reid Stowe, who is sailing around the world for 1000 days without reaching sight of land. He chose 1000 because that is how long it will take astronauts to visit Mars and return.

NASA is considering starting an online Masters of Science degree in Education & Public Outreach (EPO). I think this will be the first MS degree in science EPO in the country (the world)? They plan to hold a trial class in early 2007.

A poster about the Hubble Heritage Project had some really awesome 3D glasses of Hubble Heritage pictures. They are developed by A. Inaka, an amateur in Japan. The quality of these 3D images is fantastic. The colors are rich and the
light (sourced by the ambient light in the room) is strong. I would totally buy these as Christmas presents if he made them for sale. Instead, he makes them for fun and sends them to the Hubble team to use for outreach like this. Amateurs never cease to amazine me!
NASA has some robotic telescopes which they have been using in educational settings for a few years. Now they are granting access to the telescopes to the general public. You choose a target, set the exposure level and submit the request. The image will be ready in about 48 hours.

Sunday ended for me at about 3am after late night “networking” in a local bar that had a “half way to St. Patricks Day” special on pints of Guiness. I had a 8am train ride home and slept from Baltimore to New York. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, rail is the best way to travel. It’s a little slower than air travel - but it is relaxing, easy and much more productive. As I write this blog entry the Connecticut countryside is speeding by. In fact, I’ll take a picture. There. To the right is what I’m seeing out of my window right now. The only downside is having to put on headphones to drown out this guy’s snoring:

Overall, while the sessions were not particularly applicable to what I do, the meeting was very useful due to the sheer amount of networking that went on. I met a ton of new people and hopefully planted the seeds for some future collaborations. Now on to the AAS in January, where we can report on some real science discoveries.