Published: September 15, 2007
Ms. Herrold and her student, Zak Schroeder, spent the nights of Sept. 21 and 22 with a Spitzer exhibit at the Astronomy at the Beach star party at Kensington Metropark near Milford, MI. They talked with people as they passed through the exhibits area. These were a mix of general public, lots of families, and also lots of amateur astronomers. They spent 4 hours on Friday and 5 hours on Staurday nights. Ms. Herrold estimates that they spoke with about 40-50 people in an engaged way, but many more (over a hundred) passed by and took casual looks or read part of the exhibit.
As a result of this Zak has been asked to give a talk to an amateur astronomy group and a class of advanced high school science students. In addition, he is being recruited by a physics professor to change majors and become a member of his department.
Ms. Herrold is currently working with two other members of her teacher group to put together a poster about Spitzer educational outreach to be presented at the AAS meeting this coming January in Austin. Zak will be there as well to present the results of his research with Spitzer.