Published: August 15, 2012
Dr. Loughran writes:
Michiana was the center of a big push to celebrate the Transit of Venus in 2011 - 2012. A transit-of-Venus stained glass window coloring contest was held online here. We advertised the transit and related activities to some 100 local K-12 teachers during our fifth annual Collaborating for Research and Education Forum. An advertisement for other activities at Notre Dame can be found in this blog post.
We continued to invite middle school students to campus for an introductory astroimaging experience; we've now tried this activity with several hundred middle school students and find that almost all 5th - 8th grade students can succeed in generating their own astroimage with the Aladin applet in about an hour's time.