The GLAST Education and Public Outreach Program

The Gamma-Ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), due to launch in 2007, is a NASA mission designed to observe gamma rays from the most energetic objects in the Universe. The NASA Education and Public Outreach (E/PO) Group at Sonoma State University is the lead institution for GLAST E/PO. Given the size of the mission itself, we have planned and are executing an ambitious outreach program, including 1) an educators guide with activities (and a beautiful poster) designed to bring the science of active galaxies into the classroom; 2) a series of classroom modules by TOPS Learning Systems, Inc. that uses the GLAST mission to teach logarithms, powers of ten, and the scale of the Universe; 3) a robotic telescope in Sonoma County, California to observe GLAST targets, aiding not only GLAST science but also teaching students how astronomers process astronomical data; 4) ten Educator Ambassadors: award-winning teachers who help the E/PO group develop, test, and disseminate educational products; 5) an interactive Virtual Visitor Center web site for the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, featuring an interactive simulation of GLAST's main gamma ray detector, which is being built by the US Department of Energy, and institutions in Italy, Japan, France and Sweden; 6) a one-hour PBS NOVA television show about black holes; 7) an interactive web-based Space Mystery which teaches students about active galaxies; 8) a series of educator workshops across the country to train teachers how to use the GLAST products; 9) an educators guide based on the high-energy physics of supernovae; and 10) extensive assessment by external evaluators at WestEd. More educational materials and information about the GLAST E/PO program can be found at http://glast.sonoma.edu.