Rising from the Dead: the Revival of the EUVE E/PO

NASA's Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) is dedicated to gathering data on our sky via instrumentation sensitive to the region of light between 76 and 760 angstroms. Since the all-sky survey was completed in 1993, astronomers have made studies of selected objects with EUVE to determine their physical properties and chemical compositions. Also, they have learned about the conditions that prevail and the processes at work in stars, planets, and other sources of EUV radiation. In its pre-launch and early prime mission, EUVE had a thriving education and public outreach (E/PO) program formed expressly to spread the word on recent EUVE findings, but due to budgetary restraints in its extended mission, the project has been unable in recent years to support extensive E/PO efforts. Now in it's eighth year of operation, the EUVE Project has revived its E/PO efforts without significantly impacting its shoe-string budget. Web sites are being reconstructed, including sophisticated interactive learning environments where elementary through college level students, teachers, and the general public can select from lesson plans including, for example, an introductory astronomical module on the relationship between spectra and object classification, download three-dimensional cutouts of the EUVE skymap, view a slide show on the history and instrumentation of the satellite, take a virtual tour of the EUVE observatory, find where EUVE is in its orbit, and catch up on EUVE's most recent news and events. EUVE's revived internet E/PO presence is supplemented with staff and technical support (up to 10% of each staff person's time) of hands-on elementary and community projects coordinated by the UC Berkeley Center for Science Education (the now independent offshoot of the original EUVE E/PO). All elements of the EUVE E/PO are supported without impacting the efficient and highly productive science goals of the small-staffed mission. Additional EUVE E/PO efforts in the works include possible satellite engineering lesson plans and a www-based telemetry display tool with instructional potential. This poster will review the available EUVE E/PO materials and those that are planned for the remainder of the mission. This work is funded through NASA/UCB Cooperative Agreement NCC5-138.