Outreach

Teaching the Teachers

Anonymous — Tue, 13 Oct 2020 16:45:31 +0000

Teaching the Teachers Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 10/13/2020 - 09:45 More Outreach articles Iqbal Pittalwala | UCR Today June 25, 2018

Kenneth Barish, the chair of the UC Riverside Department of Physics and Astronomy, formally began the Summer Physics Teacher Academy this year with opening remarks that included the following sobering statistics: Nationally, 33 percent of high school students take physics. In California, on average, 22 percent of high school students take physics. For the Inland Empire, this number is alarmingly low, at just 11 percent.

Partly to help improve the last statistic, the department annually hosts the academy, attended this year by nearly 30 teachers from local high schools. The 2018 academy began Monday, June 25, and will run through Friday, June 29. Faculty in the department will give lectures to the teachers on a variety of topics, including electromagnetism, complex quantum systems, nanotechnology, how to prepare for college science classes, surface physics, and classical mechanics. Hai-Bo Yu, an assistant professor of physics, and Maria Chiara Simani, the director of the California Science Project, led the organization of this year’s academy.

Daniel McKinney, who participated in the academy in 2016, guided this year’s participants in finding the thickness of a human hair using laser diffraction. He has 17 years’ experience teaching physics, and teaches currently at Santa Rosa Academy, Menifee.

“I came up with some ideas to improve the program by integrating more lab experience for the participants,” he said. “Working with UCR faculty, I developed classroom activities that go well with the research that takes place in UCR’s modern physics labs. The UCR Summer Physics Teacher Academy serves a large region in Southern California. By helping the teachers who attend this academy, I can help their students and improve the teaching of physics regionally. I’m always looking for ways to make the academy better, and look forward to feedback from this year’s participants.”

One of the teachers participating in the academy this year is Maria Cuevas Delgado, who finished her second year of teaching at Hawthorne High School. She was inspired to attend the academy because she has never taken a high school physics course.

“College physics, which I took for a year, is, in my mind, what physics is about,” she said. “When I saw the agenda for the academy, I thought, ‘Whoa! I don’t remember any of this.’ I signed up because I think I would benefit from lectures given by UCR professors. I hope to align what I learn from them with what I teach in my school. I am excited to come up with strategies for including in my classroom the content I learn at the academy. My goal is to get my students motivated to seek physics in the future.”

Börge Hemmerling, who joined UCR last year as an assistant professor, gave the participants a research lecture on the control and applications of complex quantum systems.

“I talked about how we can use microscopic systems like atoms or molecules – what we would call complex quantum systems – to investigate and study physics questions,” he said. “I discussed the variation of fundamental constants, noting that not everything we learn in high school is a given. At the university level much of what we learned in physics is questioned. I hope the teachers use their academy experience to get their students to become more open-minded and ask bigger questions.”

Two new components in the curriculum this year are: web-based demos, which are tools that can be useful, in particular, in schools that do not have enough equipment; and a series of other demos that can be easily implemented in the classroom.

The Summer Physics Teacher Academy is sponsored by the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the California Science Project. More information about the academy can be found here.

Peter Creasey, a research scientist in the UCR Department of Physics and Astronomy, gave a talk on June 26 titled “From the Big Bang to 2018.”

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UCR hosts Mercury transit viewing

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 19:14:11 +0000

UCR hosts Mercury transit viewing Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/28/2020 - 12:14 More Outreach articles University Communications | Inside UCR November 12, 2019

INSIDE UCR -- More than 200 people came out to the UCR Baseball complex Monday morning, Nov. 11, to watch Mercury pass in front of the sun — a rare occurrence that happens around 13 times every 100 years.

The public viewing was organized by the Department of Physics and Astronomy, and it took place from 8:30 a.m.-10:30 a.m. while the planet was visible as a black dot moving across the sun. The next Mercury transit will not be visible from Earth until 2032.

Observers watched through telescopes positioned at the softball fields. The event also offered activities for children who drew and painted planets and stars at a table.

Camp Highlander co-sponsored the viewing which also included participation from the Astronomy Club, the Photonics Society, and the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

UC Riverside's Department of Physics and Astronomy hosted a viewing of Mercury in transit on Monday, Nov. 11, 2019 (UC Riverside Photonics Society)

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The vibrating universe: Making astronomy accessible to the deaf

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 18:55:56 +0000

The vibrating universe: Making astronomy accessible to the deaf Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/28/2020 - 11:55 More Outreach articles Iqbal Pittalwala | UCR News February 05, 2019

UCR NEWS -- Astronomers at the University of California, Riverside, have teamed with teachers at the California School for the Deaf, Riverside, or CSDR, to design an astronomy workshop for students with hearing loss that can be easily used in classrooms, museums, fairs, and other public events.

The workshop utilized a sound stage that allowed the CSDR students to “feel” vibrations from rockets, stars, galaxies, supernovae, and even remnants of the Big Bang itself. The members of the team have made their materials public and written up their experiences to help teachers and other educators worldwide to similarly engage the deaf community in STEM activities.

Since 2015, Gillian Wilson, senior associate vice chancellor for research and economic development and a professor of physics and astronomy at UCR, and Mario De Leo-Winkler, director of the National System of Researchers of Mexico and a former postdoctoral scholar at UCR, have developed astronomy outreach activities – astronomy photography competitions, traveling astronomy exhibitions, K12 workshops, interdisciplinary honors thesis projects, hands-on undergraduate astrophotography – that have touched 40,000 people.

They have worked closely with CSDR teachers before, ensuring American Sign Language, or ASL, at public astronomy events, but had never developed an activity targeted for the deaf community.

Around 360 million people worldwide suffer from hearing loss. In the United States, about 11 million citizens are functionally deaf or report some trouble hearing. The city of Riverside contains a large concentration of deaf students because it is home to CSDR, the only public school for the deaf in Southern California.

“Designers of informal STEM education and public outreach activities often overlook people with hearing loss,” De Leo-Winkler said. “For our workshop we decided to focus on astronomy –a gateway to science– because of the breathtaking imagery it offers, the big questions it tackles, and its increasingly interdisciplinary nature. We used storytelling, videos, and images in the workshop to bring meaning to the sounds of the universe — all of which made for a very engaging experience for the students.”

“The students clearly loved the experience,” said Wilson, “and that’s the whole point.”

De Leo-Winkler and Wilson presented the workshop multiple times over three days at CSDR, using feedback from the teachers and students not only to better convey the scientific concepts, but also to improve the students’ experience. Their presentation took the students on a cosmic voyage: the students “traveled” from Earth, where thunderstorms were raging, to the sun, where they experienced a solar storm. The voyage continued to Jupiter, flew through the rings of Saturn, and continued on to stars Alpha Centauri A and B. The students flew past the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy and encountered a supernovae explosion. The voyage ended by encountering the Cosmic Microwave Background, the radiation leftover from the Big Bang. Temperature variations in this radiation were sonified to allow the students to experience them as vibrations.

“Deaf individuals have a more developed sense of touch than hearing people due to their brain ‘rewiring’ in a process called neuroplasticity,” De Leo-Winkler said. “We paid close attention to this when designing the workshop. The students sit on a special interlocking wooden floor and face a TV screen. When sounds are played, they are transmitted by the sound system onto the floorboard as vibrations. Meanwhile videos and images that provide information are displayed on the screen. We tell the story and an interpreter signs what we say in American Sign Language.”

The workshop opens a new way of communicating cosmic phenomena, related to sound, to the deaf community, and opens the door for further developments in public outreach using vibrations to engage and excite students.

“It was very important to us to make our materials publicly accessible,” Wilson said. “There are dozens of these sound stages in the U.S. alone. Our workshop could easily be adapted to include other astronomical phenomena or to focus on another scientific discipline. I hope knowing that this was such a positive experience for us will inspire others.”

Continuing their collaboration with CSDR, De Leo-Winkler and Wilson are now developing another workshop for the deaf entitled, “Smells of the Universe”.

Researchers interested in using their “Vibrating Universe” presentation for people with hearing loss can obtain the materials here.

The paper, published in the Journal of Science Education and Technology, was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

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Science Fair aimed at Spanish-speaking families set for May 19, 2018

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 18:37:29 +0000

Science Fair aimed at Spanish-speaking families set for May 19, 2018 Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/28/2020 - 11:37 More Outreach articles Iqbal Pittalwala | UCR Today May 10, 2018

UCR TODAY -- The University of California, Riverside, is hosting a free, public event on Saturday, May 19, aimed at the Spanish-speaking community.

Children, teens, college students, and adults are invited to “Fiesta Familiar: Explorando La Ciencia Juntos,” presented entirely in Spanish, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the UCR Student Recreation Center.

Parking will be complimentary in Lot 24 at Canyon Crest Drive and West Linden Street.

“Riverside County’s population is 49 percent Hispanic,” said Mario De Leo-Winkler, a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the lead organizer of the science fair. “We would like families to come and have fun with science in their native language, so that the message can be transmitted more clearly and without language barriers in a welcoming environment.”

The fair, which is open also to those who don’t speak Spanish, will have several hands-on fun activities. The activities include:

Smelling the universe. How does a star smell, or the moon? This activity uses common-household cooking ingredients that smell similar to objects in space.
Touching an extraterrestrial object. Meteorites are pieces of rock that floated in space for billions of years before crashing on Earth. Guests will get to touch meteorites, which present inklings of how the planets and moons of our solar system were formed.
Digging it. Visitors will get to participate in an archeological excavation, learn about the different layers of soil, and excavate for bones and pieces of clay that offer clues about ancient dwellers.
Zeroing on DNA. Attendees will be able to look directly at possibly the world’s most famous molecule: DNA, the famous hereditary material in humans and almost all other organisms. Through an experiment presented at Fiesta Familiar, people will be able to see plant DNA with the naked eye.

Other activities are:

Viewing solar explosions through a telescope.
Turning copper-colored coins golden.
Raffle of four telescopes.

Attendees will be able to take a free campus tour and converse with UCR scientists. Free snacks will be offered. Other details about Fiesta Familiar can be found here.

“We would like families to come and have fun at Fiesta Familiar, and learn something new as a result of playing with science and speaking with faculty members, undergraduate, and graduate students,” De Leo-Winkler said. “UCR welcomes the Hispanic community and has plenty to offer, such as public activities and educational opportunities, as well as fellow scientists working to make the world a better place. We will offer opportunities to the community to interact directly with Hispanic researchers. This would give the public a chance to see how successful stories can be achieved, establishing a path for first-generation students to consider the natural and social sciences for their careers.”

UCR is a Hispanic-Serving Institution. The May 19 event is supported by the following at UCR: College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences; Astronomy at UCR; Office of the Provost & Executive Vice Chancellor; College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences; School of Medicine; Graduate School of Education; Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering; Department of Earth Sciences; Department of Chemistry; Department of Entomology; Plant Pathology Outreach Group; Student Association of Graduate Anthropologists; Botany and Plant Sciences Graduate Student Association; Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, UC California Alliance for Minority Participation (CAMP) – Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, and NASA NAI Alternative Earths Program. Other supporters include the NASA MIRO MUREP FIELDS Program, Taco Station, Riverside STEM Academy Foundation, and Riverside Unified School District.

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Campus to celebrate 50th anniversary of historic Moon landing

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 18:17:18 +0000

Campus to celebrate 50th anniversary of historic Moon landing Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/28/2020 - 11:17 More Outreach articles Iqbal Pittalwala | UCR News July 08, 2019

UCR NEWS -- This year marks the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 Moon mission. To celebrate, the University of California, Riverside, is hosting a free public event on Thursday, July 11, from 6:30-9:30 p.m.

Attendees will have an opportunity to learn more about the Apollo 11 legacy, as well as current missions to our solar-system’s planets and moons. The event, which will take place in Pierce Lawn and the Life Sciences Building, will also feature telescope viewings of the moon, and multiple hands-on activities.

On July 16, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins lifted off from Earth on a journey to the moon. Four days later, Armstrong and Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the lunar surface.

“Landing on the moon was probably the single most important achievement of humankind since the beginning of civilization,” said Bahram Mobasher, a professor of physics and observational astronomy. He’s an expert on the formation and evolution of galaxies and the search for the most distant ones. “This honor belongs to all humanity regardless of race, religion, or the country of the origin. It shows the power of our will and the strength of our desires — a clear demonstration of what science can do.”

Stephen Kane, an associate professor of planetary astrophysics, agrees that the moon landing represents a significant milestone in our advancement of our civilization.

“For the first time in history, we were finally free from being restricted to only walking upon our planet,” said Kane, an expert on the detection, characterization, and habitability of exoplanets. “However, the famous quote of the landing being a ‘giant leap for mankind’ is more than just about scientific progress. It was an event that truly unified humanity and provided a key moment of reflection on how we are all custodians of our beautiful island oasis in a vast universe, and we should never lose sight of that big picture.”

Hands-on activities, such as touching a Martian meteorite, understanding the phases and eclipses of the moon, and cratering experiments, will take place from 6:30-7:30 p.m. in the Life Sciences courtyard, and will resume at 8:30 p.m. along with telescope viewings in Pierce Lawn.

Timothy Lyons, a distinguished professor of biogeochemistry in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, will give a talk titled “Fifty Years of Discovery — From the Moon to Mars and Beyond” in Life Sciences 1500.

No RSVP is required to attend the event. Complimentary parking will be available for attendees in Lot 6.

“The moon landing was the first and one of the greatest attempts at space exploration in the entire human history,” said event organizer Xinnan Du, a postdoctoral scholar and director of education and public outreach in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. “As a millennial, I’ve always been awed by the fact that humankind had already walked on the surface of another celestial object when technology was still barely part of everyday life. This anniversary is an amazing opportunity to not only celebrate the achievement we made 50 years ago, but also learn about how far we’ve come in exploring space: from the moon, to Mars, to Pluto, and the outer edge of the solar system.”

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The new pandemic hobby: gazing at the stars

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Sep 2020 18:07:34 +0000

The new pandemic hobby: gazing at the stars Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/28/2020 - 11:07 More Outreach articles Adam H. Graham | Wall Street Journal August 15, 2020

WALL STREET JOURNAL -- It's too hot to bake yet another peach pie and too late in the season to start a victory garden, but it is a prime time to ponder the night sky. More than 60 places around the country have been designated as exemplary stargazing sites by the International Dark-Sky Association, which is not, as the name suggests, the

bureaucratic arm of the League of Villains, but a conservation organization devoted to reducing light pollution. Not only do these Dark Sky sites provide a high-def upgrade to backyard stargazing, but, since they’re often in fairly remote locales, they’re also conducive to social distancing. For those who’d rather stay in their own orbit, several Dark Sky sites offer up a hefty menu of virtual astronomy programs.

Like many conservation movements, the notion of preserving night skies took off in the 1970s, fueled by amateur astronomers concerned about excessive urban light. In 1988, the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) was incorporated in Tucson, Ariz., by founders David Crawford, a professional astronomer. and Tim Hunter, a physician/amateur astronomer. IDA now represents 145 destinations in 21 countries.

Smokey Jack Observatory is housed in a barn with a retractable roof

Five types of Dark Sky designations exist, each with its own set of criteria: International Dark Sky Communities, Parks, Reserves, Sanctuaries and Urban Night Sky Places. You can find the sites in every corner of the country, so you needn’t drive far to access one. DIY activities like firefly spotting and moonrise picnics appeal to both amateur astronomers and romantics in search of a little cosmic recreation. But the sites also offer Coronavirus-era activities for family and friend bubbles seeking starry solitude.

Here, a sampling of five Dark Sky sites in the U.S.; you can check IDA’s map at darksky.org to find the places closest to you.

Big and Bright in Texas

The Lone Star State is home to 15 official Dark Sky places, including Big Bend National Park and neighboring Big Bend Ranch State Park, both at a far enough remove from city life to promise a million-plus acres of protected night sky. While some programming is on hiatus due to coronavirus regulations, you can still hire

private guides at the visitors center for astronomy walks, a chance to spot three of the Southern Cross’s four stars. Two hours away, the McDonald Observatory live-streams its telescope-viewing programs on YouTube, using its powerful telescope to give virtual visitors a glimpse of the skies above West Texas’s Davis Mountains.

Colorado’s Star Power

Westcliffe and Silver Cliff, about 2.5 hours south of Denver in the Wet Mountain Valley, together make up Colorado’s first designated International Dark-Sky Association Community. Local residents adopt stringent outdoor lighting ordinances. The result: reliably glittery skies crowning the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The site’s iconic Smokey Jack Observatory, housed in a barn with a retractable roof, no longer hosts its usual star parties but Dark Skies Colorado posts images and videos on the group’s Facebook page several time a week.

Pennsylvania’s Space Station

The Milky Way is so bright at Cherry Springs State Park (pictured below), in north central Pennsylvania, that rangers say it casts a shadow. The park—about a five-hour drive from the city glows of New York City, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia—is considered to have the darkest skies in the east. According to IDA, those skies typically turn out 60 to 85 clear nights a year, which makes for crystal-clear ogling of constellations and galaxies like Andromeda. From September to March, you might catch a peek at the Aurora Borealis. North Star Outdoor Guides offer private tours to help you spot meteor showers (wildasaphoutfitters.com). Or you can opt for a nightscape photo workshop (pbase.com/cwphoto). Serious astronomers will appreciate the Overnight Astronomy Observation Field, which prohibits campfires and all forms of white light, but there’s another campsite with picnic tables and fire pits. Stuck at home? Starting Aug. 21, the park’s website will post night-sky walking tours.

Luminescent Skies and Seas in Florida

Big Cypress National Preserve, recognized by IDA in 2016, is located in the Everglades, about an hour west of Fort Lauderdale. Ranger-led programs aren’t scheduled again until December and the campgrounds are closed due to coronavirus restrictions, but naked eye views of constellations, planets and mysteriously dimming stars like Betelgeuse continue to lure solo and small group astro-enthusiasts. And sixth-generation Glades-man, Captain Steve offers private stargazing and campfire tours in his everglades Swampbuggy. What’s more, green flash sunsets are common in South Florida, and ocean bioluminescence here peaks from June to September when microscopic dinoflagellates glow turquoise. Homebound star-gazers can join the Saturday night “observing sessions” via Zoom with the South Florida Amateur Astronomy Association, hosted by Fox Astronomical Observatory.

Cosmic California

Sandwiched between San Diego and the Salton Sea, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park offers all the beauty of a California desert without the crowds at Joshua Tree and Palm Springs. The regular stargazing meet-ups and private night tours are on hiatus, but you can still stake out spot—you’ll find a map of the area’s best stargazing sits at abdnha.org. Or, from home, view a recording of the University of California Riverside’s video feed to see any number of celestial objects. This month try take a gander at the Perseid Meteor Shower, which peaked August 12 but is active through Aug 26th. And if you miss that, mark your calendar for Halloween, when the ultra rare Blue Moon makes an appearance.

Watch the first UC Riverside astronomy department virtual Star Party recording here.

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