Chair: Mary Kay Hemenway
Recorder: John Percy
Reporter: Elizabeth Roettger
Counting individuals and groups as "nodes," we defined a network as interacting nodes with issues in common. Although networks connect many organizations and communities, they tend to work through connections between individuals. We believe this is because good networks often rely on mutual respect and trust, which are easier to achieve among individuals. We need networks because an individual can't do everything alone; we need to pool our skills and share the work. No single human being can keep track of the enormous amount of information being generated; we need to filter the information and share the important things with each other. We waste an enormous amount of time and resources re-inventing projects that others have tried and perfected or discarded; we need to share our experiences and learn from each other.
We want astronomy education networks to be used to
connect and empower the separate nodes. We hope these
networks will:
Two main themes, with a lot of overlap, kept recurring. We found ourselves trying to connect communities and trying to share resources.
COMMUNITIES
Who are the communities that have something we need
for astronomy education? We started a list of network
subsets, and invite you to add to the list depending upon your
own interactions and needs:
How do we choose, reach, and work with these diverse groups? Most of us join a network because we have a need that the network can fill. Recognizing that others have something to offer us makes it easier to respect them and their skills. Astronomers can learn from teachers, planetarium staff, and others as well as vice versa (consider that teachers study how to design good bulletin boards, and then compare that to your experience as you walk through a poster session at an astronomy conference). It's too easy to focus on our own expertise and fail to value the expertise of others; mutual respect is one key to make a network connection work. Another key to successful networks and coalitions is communication - it is more effective to reach someone or some group by using their modes of communication. This may be a choice of vocabulary or a choice between e-mail and phone calls. Although e-mail is a convenient form of communication, we noted that many people and organizations do not have e-mail, and felt it was important to maintain multiple modes of communication to avoid separating the haves from the have-nots. E-mail can break some of an astronomer's or teacher's sense of isolation, but there are isolated astronomy teachers that must be reached through other modes of communication.
Communities
We need networks for surveying, gathering information, finding out what's been successful, and disseminating information and resources. We wondered who or what would be the best "node" for astronomy education. Directories of who has what resources, projects, and programs would be useful. We particularly want to find ways to make resources available to teachers, and discussed a central clearinghouse, or just trying to link teachers to the local "nodes." We wondered how such efforts could be funded: through professional societies, private funding, or funding agencies (we hope to see more cooperation between National Science Foundation, NASA, and other agencies, and between the education and research branches).
Challenges and Lessons Learned
Recommended actions:
1. Use existing structures and modes of communication We discussed STScI as a possible national institute for science education. We listed some existing resources: Physics Education News (PEN is a electronic newsletter produced by AIP), the AAS WGAE (with its electronic newsletter), the AIP monthly magazine Physics Today, the AAS "Newsletter," ASP's magazine "Mercury," the proposed AAS Initiative in Astronomy Education, and NASA's Space Grant Colleges & Coalitions and teachers' resource centers. We also discussed possible new publications, organizations, or divisions of existing organizations, and are forced to admit that it's quite tempting to reinvent the wheel.
2. Individuals:
4. Include quality control in the information you communicate:
There are a lot of good materials and programs around, but there are some that aren't so good. Many of us don't want to criticize, but it's possible to recommend quality items or describe how something meets your needs. (The worth of a resource lies in the "hands of the user;" some items are excellent for certain circumstances or require special equipment and are useless for others. Therefore, just a list of "what's available" doesn't provide much value.) Andrew Fraknoi (ASP's Project ASTRO) and several others have compiled lists of recommended resources; although a single combined list might be more convenient, multiple annotated lists may serve better as a review and filtering system.
5. We need to provide information on how to help each other connect to others with which they may wish to network. For science teachers, NSTA (with a membership of over 52,000) might be an appropriate place to start.
6. We need to
Mary Kay Hemenway's Selected Publications