Sun-Earth Connection EPO's with Multiple Uses and Audiences

The three-year life of an EPO grant can be a journey guided by clear goals and enriched by collaborative and outreach opportunities connecting Space sciences to Earth sciences for both K-12 and public audiences. This point is illustrated by two EPO projects funded by NASA Sun-Earth Connection research grants to the High Altitude Observatory (HAO) at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. They are entering their final year coordinated by the Office of Education and Outreach at University Corporation for Atmospheric Research. The content focus of both projects is well aligned with HAO's research mission and the expertise of our scientists, addressing solar dynamics, space weather, and the impacts of solar events on the magnetosphere, as well as societies inhabiting Earth's surface. The first project (Gang Lu, PI) develops presentation resources, inquiry activities, and tips that will help HAO scientists be better prepared to visit K-12 classrooms. Unexpectedly, the simultaneous development of a Teachers' Guide to NCAR's new Climate Discovery exhibit, which takes an Earth system approach to climate and global change, has created a niche for this EPO resource to be revised and repurposed for a needed unit in the guide about the exhibit's graphic panels on Sun-Earth connections. The second project (Art Richmond, PI) engages two high school "Teachers in Residence" to develop resources they can utilize with their students. Excited by exceptional educational graphics and animations in the new Physics of the Aurora: Earth Systems module co-produced by HAO and the COMET Program for advanced undergraduate courses, they chose to adapt appropriate sections of the module to enrich Earth science and math concepts addressed in their 9th and 10th grade astronomy and general physics classes. Simultaneously, the Windows to the Universe web site, which continuously updates space science content and is now developing a new Space Weather section with support from the Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling at Boston University, is able to integrate the resources developed through the EPOs and widely disseminate the high school version of the module to a large global audience. Thus, UCAR/NCAR-based EPOs are finding it beneficial to bring space sciences "down to Earth" to educate public and K-12 audiences.