Published: March 15, 2007
In January 2007, Ms. Roelofsen Moody attended the AAS/AAPT convention and, along with other Spitzer teachers, presented two posters: "Spitzer Space Telescope Research Program for Teachers and Students: Using Spitzer data in your classroom with (relatively) simple software"; and "Spitzer Observations of YSO's in the Witch Head Nebula (IC 2118)" , The former included instructions for high school teachers wishing to use MaximDL in their classroom, as well as an Excel spreadsheet to help convert measured values obtained in MaximDL to Flux and/Magnitudes. In addition, she traveled, along with other Spitzer teachers, as well as Dr. Varoujan Gorjian and Dr. Luisa Rebull, to take spectra at Palomar of specific stars within the IC2118 region.
With the assistance of Dr. Thomas Jordan at Ball State University, Ms. Roelofsen Moody was able to acquire some time on the 0.9 SARA telescope at Kitt Peak. This data (again of regions within IC2118), at primarily H Alpha wavelengths, has been partially reduced, but requires some more work. Stay tuned.
Along with the help of Dr. Rebull, Ms. Roelofsen Moody has been working on a Spitzer Teacher Wiki site, that would include information for all students and teachers involved in the Spitzer Teacher Observing Program. The Spitzer Student Handbook has been added to the Wiki, and more work will continue. Once the sections on M81 and IC2118 are complete on the WIKI, the plan is to invite other Spitzer teachers (involved in other projects) to start using the WIKI and adding to it with their students.
Since leaving the classroom in June 2006, Ms. Roelofsen Moody has been involved in Spitzer Outreach in a slightly different way. She now works at the New Jersey Astronomy Center for Education (at Raritan Valley Community College) where she teaches a variety of Teacher Professional Development workshops in Astronomy. These include teaching teachers about light/color and the electromagnetic spectrum, as well as gravity, galaxies and stellar evolution. Although Spitzer material is not specifically used in those workshops, Ms. Roelofsen Moody tries to incorporate it where and whenever possible. She is also trying to obtain materials from the SSC to give to participating teachers during those workshops.
Lastly, Ms. Roelofsen Moody began working as a Volunteer Astronomer through Project ASTRO since March 2007. She now volunteers in a fourth grade classroom in Mountainside, NJ. So far, she has made one visit to the class where she talked about her work with Spitzer, how space telescopes work, and what types of research she has been doing with the telescope. She plans to return to the same school and classroom several times over the course of the 2006-7 school year.