Connecting Science Research and Education While Investigating Trans-Neptunian Objects

The Research and Education Cooperative Occultation Network (RECON) is an innovative citizen science project to determine the sizes of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) as well as search for satellites and rings. We have more than 50 operating sites set from Oroville, WA south to Yuma, AZ with roughly 50 km average spacing. The full phase of the project started in April 2015 after all the participant training was completed. Each site is provided with a 0.28 cm telescope and video recording equipment to observe the occultation signatures. The system can be used on stars as faint as magnitude 16. Each site is formed from the community with teachers, amateur astronomers, and community members that are then also tasked with engaging students to conduct the observational campaigns. Most of the students are of high-school age but we have involvement from younger and older students, depending on the community. We have conducted numerous campaigns so far and have begun publishing scientific results. In addition to presenting a quick overview of results from these observation campaigns, we will describe lessons learned about recruitment, preparation, and retention of citizen scientists from rural communities to conduct authentic astronomy research. In our experience, recruitment and preparation were far easier than anticipated. The biggest challenge to the ongoing operation of RECON is due to the typical turnover rate among high-school teachers. Our team design is built to withstand the departure of one or two key people but some communities are small enough that we cannot build big enough teams for proper resiliency. Despite these challenges, we have successfully built a unique scientific community working to explore the Kuiper Belt. This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. AST-1212159 and AST-1413287. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).