Big Explosions and Strong Gravity: NASA/Girl Scout Project Searching for Nationwide Partners
Abstract
We are looking for national partners for our Big Explosions and Strong Gravity (BESG) Girl Scout collaboration. This is an activity designed to put real astronomers in the classroom, and was originally set into motion using money from the Chandra X-ray Observatory E/PO program. The girls who participate in this event range from 11 to 17 years old. Although all the activities are gender-neutral, we have chosen girls due to their underrepresentation in science. We target this age range due to the general decline in interest in math and science that occurs at or after children reach this critical age (meaning that we reach them early enough to have a positive effect).
BESG is a Girl Scout patch-earning event where over the course of a day, girls explore Supernovae, Black Holes, the abundance of elements in the universe, and spectroscopy. This event has been run three times over the past four years with the Girl Scouts of Central Maryland, and by the time of this meeting will have been run once more as a test run of our new manual. Thanks to a NASA ROSES grant, we are now working to expand this program nationally. Within the next year, it will be run at a second test council, and then we would like for it to run in approximately 5 new locations around the country. Towards this end, we are looking for Girl Scout councils and astronomers who can partner up to run this activity. We can supply manuals, remote support through our experienced team, and through our NASA ROSES grant, may be able to help provide supplies for the first five Girl Scout/astronomer teams available to conduct BESG in 2009.- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #212
- Pub Date:
- May 2008
- Bibcode:
- 2008AAS...212.7103E