Published: August 15, 2006
Mr. Blackwell gave a presentation on August 18th to visitors of the Christa McAuliffe Planetarium in Concord, NH. Attending were people of all ages with a count of 75. More than half were local NH Astronomical Society members. The rest were general public. This was a presentation in two parts: A general overview of the Spitzer Space Telescope and IR astronomy, plus a review of our project.
Last spring, Mr. Blackwell introduced his astronomy students to multifrequency analysis of objects, including galaxies. They learned the value of IR work and gained an understanding of star formation rates and why that is an important thing to study.
Mr. Blackwell will continue to use the Spitzer project as a teaching tool for his students as an example of real life science research. He will also be presenting this to the local NH Science Teachers Association spring workshops (next June) and to other teachers at Phillips Exeter Academy this autumn as part of teacher workshop week. Next summer, they are planning an east coast astronomy educator's colloquium on astronomy education. He plans to use his Spitzer experience then as well.