Published: February 12, 2024
Mr. Senson writes:
I have incorporated the idea of publicly accessible data supporting non-traditional and resource challenged research initiatives in almost every public show of the MMSD Planetarium since starting in NITARP. This weekend I have done 14 "Romance Under the Stars" and "Enchantment Under the Stars" programs with a theme focused on our love of the universe and our special relationship to it. The idea of data-driven decision making is now integrally woven into the program... I even have a "Is this the one?" compatibility quiz for making a decision about whether or not we should be thinking about living on an object like the Moon, or Mars... or a moon.
The concept that light pollution is rapidly running away and we are losing the sky (also woven now into every planetarium program that I do (~23000 visitors a year) is always connected to the array of light that is out there to observe and why it is so important to protect access to observation in every color available.
A direct spin off of my NITARP experience comes out of this last AAS meeting... at the educators evening session I made connections with the education committee leaders and am now in the process of becoming involved with the AAS education committee as a person representing the K-12 and informal education communities. At that same meeting I ran into Toby Dietrichs... who with a team of others worked to replicate the famous Eddington experiment from the 1919 solar eclipse... in 2017 they debugged and worked out methods to use modern equipment to collect observations to show that this particular method really does support General Relativity (not that it is in question, but the original and subsequent experiments are really of limited observational points and for stars found significantly far out from the solar disc). From this conversation I have jumped into the project for the "Modern Eddington Experiment" MEE2024 and will be now traveling to Leakey, TX to join seven telescopes to collect data during the eclipse and analyze it for reaffirming the match of the data to the predicted curvature of space time. An additional seven telescopes are heading to El Salto Mexico to collect data during totality there. With modern CMOS detectors the result should be a magnitude or two increase in the number of stars that can be accurately measured and with a significant number in the 1 to 2 solar radii region where there is very very little prior data. I would never have considered jumping into such a project without the significant change that NITARP has made to not only my confidence that I can do this, that pursuing a curious question is rewarding in itself, and that even if we fail it will be a spectacular attempt at knowing something new and wonderful and open the door to deeper questions.
I have presented the NITARP experience and our experiment (our research posters) as the topic for the Middleton HS astronomy club, and will be presenting the NITARP (and now the MEE2024) experiences to the Madison Astronomical Society monthly meeting on the Friday following the eclipse.
I have made connections to the SARA group, RadioJove community, and now SunRise and have assembled a radio telescope on the roof of the planetarium (Radio Jove style dual dipole) and have just had first light... debugging data collection and software settings currently. So a whole new range of signals in the spectrum are becoming normal to talk about in the planetarium programs.
The NITARP experience is woven into my very being. It has changed every aspect of my teaching. I reflect on lesson design, instructional pedagogy, learning goals, assessment and reflective practices with new insights into what it really is to be a scientist, to be scientifically literate, and to be a citizen scientist and an informed citizen. The experiences of my students are enriched with the lessons gained from my connection to the NITARP experience.
I can't thank NITARP enough for it impact in my life... NITARP is the best PD and personal growth experience I have ever participated in, and I have participated in a ton of them... so thank you, thank you, thank you NITARP!