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Assessment of the NASA Astrobiology Institute (2008) / Chapter Skim
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6 Education and Outreach
Pages 57-62

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From page 57...
... In many cases, the scientists themselves play active roles in education and outreach by giving public lectures, leading field trips, and teaching college courses at all levels. These EPO efforts have been extremely well received by their intended audiences.
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From page 58...
... Examples include the following: • Origins -- 14 Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution -- a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) television broadcast in the Nova series.4 • Looking for Life -- a NASA/PBS program on astrobiology.5 The NAI expanded public distribution of this program by producing 4,000 DVDs, which were distributed within the NAI EPO community for use in local public outreach events such as Astrofest, Space Day, science fair judging, Girl Scout programs, and so on.
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From page 59...
... education initiative and actively encourages collaboration among EPO practitioners. A large component of the University of Washington's EPO effort has been to expand the very successful Project Astro -- a nationwide program in which astronomers are paired with local school teachers to bring astronomy into K-12 classrooms23 -- into Project AstroBio.24 Starting with the 2002-2003 school year, the University of Washington's Project AstroBio has annually paired 20-25 teachers from the Puget Sound region with volunteer astronomers or biologists.
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From page 60...
... More support could be given to NAI faculty members who offer truly interdisciplinary astrobiology courses for undergraduate science majors. This support could be in the following forms: • Curriculum materials, similar to those produced for K-12, but adapted to the college undergraduate level; • Release time, before or during the semester that an astrobiology course is being taught, to allow researchers to host workshops for current and future astrobiology educators; • Initiation of a focus group on astrobiology education at the undergraduate science-major level; and • Summer courses in astrobiology for undergraduates.
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From page 61...
... Because the current NAI teams are at various stages in their tenures, their EPO activities are in various stages of development. To avoid duplication of effort and wasted resources, the committee suggests that when new NAI teams are selected, NAI Central could facilitate connections between the existing EPO teams and the new arrivals.
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From page 62...
... Edwards, and James L Larsen, Astrobiology: An Integrated Science Approach, Technical Education Research Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2005.
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Key Terms

  • epo activities
  • nai central
  • nai teams
  • nasa astrobiology
  • astrobiology courses

  • astrobiology institute
  • public outreach
  • tennessee state
  • nai team
  • science majors

  • field trips
  • project astrobio
  • national park
  • teacher training
  • nai epo

  • nai activities
  • nai researchers
  • education research
  • epo efforts
  • epo effort

  • giving public
  • teaching undergraduate
  • astrobiology programs
  • science education
  • undergraduate classes

  • educational materials
  • accompanying educational
  • summer school
  • field tested
  • scientific content


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