A summer workshop will be offered at the Takoma Park campus of Montgomery College for teachers in grades 1 through 8 starting July 28, 2003 and running through August 8, 2003 (for a total of 10 face to face meeting from 8AM until 3PM Monday through Friday). The teachers will learn not only astronomy, but the mathematics, chemistry, geology, physics and technology necessary to understand and teach effectively. The grade-specific modoules will be developed by the teachers to use in their classroom based upon http://www.mcps.k12.md.us/curriculum/science/curr/blueprints.htm written by Michael Szesze.
The visual, historical, religious (astrology), multicultural, and artistic roots of astronomy will also be explored, as well as the modern scientific approach. Hand-held, inexpensive celestial spheres, sundials of several different types, stighting protractors, holographic high resolution diffraction grating spectrometers, and astrolabes (for the higher grade levels), Contemporary Laboratory Exercises in Astronomy (CLEA) computer virtual realities and computer astrophysical simulations, and other devices will be used during the workshop and become the property of the teacher. A significant part of the workshop will be conducted in the planetarium under the stars and in a computer laboratory were all of the machines are connected to the Internet.  The planetarium is WiFi, (IEEE 802.11b) enabled so teachers are encouraged to bring wireless lap top computers to use to take notes and use during the workshop to run laboratory exercises and computer simulations as well as find things on the web and write web pages. Project STAR (Science Teaching through Astronmical Roots) text will be used.  A visit to the Goddard Space Flight Center on August 5, 2003 and the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism of the Carniege Institution of Washington (the oldest non-profit research organization in the country) at one of the Saturday during the school year meetings.  The teachers will return to their classrooms with astronomical knowledge, reference materials, simple laboratory equipment that they have built and used and can get their students to build and use, computer programs that they have used, and astronomy modules written by them and other teachers in previous workshops designed to meet the needs of their students.  WebCT, internet course software, will be used to support the class and teachers during the intensive two week, 10 meeting, summer workshop and afterward during the school year and the follow up Saturday workshops on September 27, October 25, November 22, 2003, skipping December; and January 17, February 28, March 27, April 24, and May 15, 2004 (for additional 8 face to face meeting from 8AM until 3PM on Saturday).  So there are a total of 18 face to face all day meeting and many more online WebCT meeting in discussions online.  

Personal teaching at the workshop:

• Dr. Harold Williams, Workshop director and planetarium and physics lab coordinator,
• Dr. Nancy Grace Roman, retired program scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope and many other things,
• Dr. Carol Crannell, a Sunbeams and HESSI person,
• Dr. Gordon Dean Holman, a HESSI person,
• Dr. Alan Boss, DTM astrophysicist staff member and author of Looking for Earths: The Race to Find New Solar System (order from Amazon.com  ),
• Dr. Steve Shirey, DTM geochemist staff member, 
• Max Nam, physics professor at Montgomery College at Takoma Park, Maryland.
  

Teachers will be paid $100 per day, for attending all workshop meetings.  Further more teachers will be paid another $200, the equivalent of two workshop meeting attendances, for developing acceptable lesson plans using the templates found on the Blueprint link. The total that a teacher could make for attending all meetings and completing acceptable lesson plans that they get to use in their own teaching is $2,000 for this workshop.  The workshop is supported under Title II of the Public Law 107-110(No Child Left Behind Act of 2001) CFDA #84.367, subject to funding via grant approval from MHEC, Maryland Higher Education  Commission, we submitted the proposal on June 4, 2003 and will hear back around July 1, 2003 to hopefully seriously recruit teachers.  Four  previous workshops were funded under the Tittle II Dwight D. Eisenhower Professional Development Program (public law 103-382; CFDA Number 82.281B) awarded by the MHEC to Montgomery College; and one additional workshop in 1998 awarded to Southeastern University by the DC Human services commission.  5 successful Astronomy Across the Curriculum: Teacher Workshops have already run and this one will draw on everything learned so far and be the best yet.   Internet course software like WebCT and Blackboard were not avalible in 1999 when the last three week summer workshop with some follow up Saturday workshops occured.  Learning how to teach Astronomy across the science curriclum does take some time, so take a year, and you can keep your day job which runs 9 1/2 months a year.  True education produces a permanet alteration in behavior.   That is why it takes so long in school to be educated.  Some of us are lucky enough to be never satified with our education and understanding of the universe; so we become teachers and learners (students) forever!  

If you are interested in applying for this program click here.   You do not have to wait until July 1, 2003 to apply when we will know whether or not we got the grant from MHEC and will be running the workshop, if you choice to click here now.

If you have any questions please call Dr. Harold Williams at [301]-650-1463 or email at hwilliam@mc.cc.md.us.
Web page last modified by Dr. Harold Williams June 5, 2003 after submitting the proposal.
Return to Montgomery College Planetarium Web page.