... Caltech Submillimeter Observatory Education, Outreach, and Public Service

Compiled by Staff of CSO, 111 Nowelo Street Hilo, HI 96270   PH: 808-935-1909

 
The purpose of the following web files is to to provide a record of our outreach and education activities.   


OUTREACH ACTIVITIES /p>


.........YEAR 2010.........

January 23, 2010. Onizuka Science Day. This is the special day to commemorate Hawaii's Astronaut Ellison Onizuka with exhibits, demonstrations, and lectures, including a special presentation by astronaut Dr. Anna Fisher. Events took place at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, in the spacious Library lanai. CSO contributed an exhibit table planned and prepared by Hiroko Shinnaga. The exhibits consisted of the CSO model, a panel displaying astronomical results and publications, a computer playing a short video on CSO, and most attractive to the young set, the parabolic dish demonstration. Participating in the event were Ed Bufil, Brian Force, Ruisheng Peng, Walter Steiger, and Hiroko Shinnaga. For more pictures, go here.

The CSO exhibit with Hiroko Shinnaga.


.........YEAR 2009.........

January 24, 2009. Onizuka Science Day. This is the special day to commemorate Hawaii's Astronaut Ellison Onizuka with exhibits, demonstrations, and lectures, including a special presentation by astronaut Daniel Tani. Events took place at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. CSO contributed an exhibit table planned and prepared by Hiroko Shinnaga. The exhibits consisted of the parabolic dish and the vacuum-of-space demonstrations. Participating in the all-day event were Steve Baca, Ed Bufil, Brian Force, Walter Steiger, and Hiroko Shinnaga. For more pictures, go here.

February 9 - 13, 2009, Journey Through the Universe week. See the description of the JTTU program from January 2007, below. Participating from CSO this year were Richard Chamberlin, Brian Force, Hiroko Shinnaga, and Walter Steiger. They made presentations to various classes at the Public Charter School, Connections. For more details, go here

May 2, 2009: AstroDay 2009
AstroDay was again held at the Prince Kuhio Mall from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. This year's event surpassed even last year's record of the number of participating organizations and space allocated. CSO had an entire vacant shop all to itself in which the exhibits were set up. As at earlier events, CSO's number one attraction was the "art" table, superbly organized and conducted by Diana Bisel . The kids had great fun building paper rockets! See pictures here. CSO staff members also included Steve Baca, Ed Bufil, Brian Force, Richard Chamberlin, and Hiroko Shinnaga, with even some family members helping out at the "art" table.

June 18 and 20, 2009:    2009IYA Directoirs' Lecture Series.
CSO Director Dr. Thomas Phillips presents "Exploring the Cool Universe" , a public lecture on a cool topic. On June 18 the lecture was given at the Keck Observatory Headquarters in Waimea, and on June 20 the lecture was presented at the 'Imiloa Astronomy Center in Hilo.

June to August 2009. The CSO Summer Intern Student this year, for the first time, was a High School student, Sean Burke . Sean is a senior at Waiakea High and has a strong interest in science and math. At CSO he is learning about the internal operations of an observatory and helping to analyse statistical data provided by users of the telescope. These data relate to the types of studies made, successes and/or failures, suggestions for improvements and other useful data.

October 24, 2009. A GALILEO BLOCK PARTY was organized by the various observatory facilities located in the University of Hawaii at Hilo Research Park to commemorate the International Year of Astronomy and the 400th anniversary of Galileo's telescope disoveries. Each facility had some kind of open-house and/or outdoor canopy with exhibits, demonstrations, or hands-on projects. The party, open from 2 to 6 p.m., was given wide publicity and attracted many hundreds of visitors. CSO held an open-house at which the observatory model was on display along with a display panel explaining work of the telescope. The vacuum demonstration was put on whenever a few visitors were gathered, and an oscilloscope displaying the reception of a radio signal was on hand to illustrate how we "see" radio waves from stars. Attracting the most attention, however, was a table set up with matrerials for the youngsters to make colorful paper rockets.

Steve Baca operates the Vacuum Demo          Diana Bisel's art rocket project was very popular!


.........YEAR 2008.........

January 26, 2008. Onizuka Science Day. This is the special day to commemorate Hawaii's Astronaut Ellison Onizuka with exhibits, demonstrations, and lectures, including a special presentation by current astronaut Barbara Morgan. Events took place at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. CSO contributed an exhibit table planned and prepared by Hiroko Shinnaga. Demonstrations consisted of the microwave dish bouncing balls and the vacuum chamber demonstrating that sound does not travel through a vaccum, but light does. Read more...

Riley Ceria at the table, Walter Steiger at the vacuum demonstration.

February 1-8, 2008, Journey Through the Universe week. See description of the program from January 2007, below. Participating from CSO this year, in addition to Hiroko Shinnaga and Walter Steiger, were Riley Ceria, Riuchard Chamberlin, and Steve Baca. Shinnaga visited Hilo Union and DeSilva schools using her microwave dish demonstration. Steiger visited the Waiakea Elementary and De Silva schools with his illustrated talk on atmospheric optics. Ceria visited Waiakea and Kalanianaole schools talking about robotics. Chamberlin visited Hilo High School with a talk about his research at the South Pole. For the first time, we decided to include an observatory technician, Steve Baca, to talk about opportunities for careers in astronomy other than a Ph.D. astronomer. That worked out very well and was thought to be worthwhile. Read more...

May 3, 2008: AstroDay 2008
AstroDay was again held at the Prince Kuhio Mall from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. This year's event surpassed all previous events in terms of variety of organizations represented and the space in the Mall that was occupied and the numbers of visitors! CSO had 3 tables along with the microwave dish and a large display.



Left: Staff artist, Diana Bisel, supervises the youngsters in constructing a comet wind-sock.
Right: Staff technician, Steve Baca, helps kids - and adults - understand how a parabolic mirror reflects incoming rays - or ping-pong balls - so that they converge at the focal point.


.........YEAR 2007.........

January 19-26, 2007 Journey Through the Universe is a national educational initiative developed by the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education. The program takes entire communities , students, teachers, and families to the frontier. Scientists and staff from CSO participated in this program. Electronics engineer Riley Ceria made presentations on Robotics at Waiakea Intermediate School, at Hilo Intermediate School, and at the Connections Charter School. Astronomer Hiroko Shinnaga made presentations to two different groups at the Laupahoehoe School. She talked about how telescopes work, using her demonstration of dropping ping-pong balls on a parabolic microwave dish (see photo). Walter Steiger also made presentations to two different groups at Laupahoehoe School, speaking about the importance of observing everyday nature such as the sky, clouds, rainbows, halos, etc., and thinking about how they come about.


         The children await their turn to "drop the ball"!

April 21, 2007:   AstroDay 2007
AstroDay was again held at the Prince Kuhio Mall from 10 am to 5 pm. CSO's exhibit was organized by Hiroko Shinnaga with the assistance of Diana Bisel, Riley Ceria, Ruisheng Peng, Ed Bufil, and Richard Chamberlin. The exhibit included the CSO model, the parabolic dish demo (see above), a robotic vehicle demo, and the "create-your-own-stars" art project for kids, which was such a great hit last year also. The robotic vehicle was designed and built by CSO engineer Riley Ceria and illustrates the work he has been doing with high school students to stimulate their interest in science via robotics.

June - August 2007. The Summer Intern Student this summer was a graduate student from the University of Orsay (Paris), John Carter. John is a graduate student in astrophysics. It was his desire to work at CSO to gain experience in submillimeter astrophysics. At CSO he assisted Dr. Chamberlin with the analysis of submillimeter data taken at the south pole. Read more... Upon his departure the staff had a small farewell party at which he was presented with a framed picture of CSO.

Pictured, left to tright: Hiroshige Yoshida, Pat Nelson, John Carter,
Riley Ceria, Hiroko Shinnaga, and Richard Chamberlin.


.........YEAR 2006.........

.........YEAR 2005.........

.........YEAR 2004.........

........YEAR 2003........

........YEAR 2002........

........YEARS 2000-2001........

Educational Materials

A discussion of how daylight, twilight, and nighttime vary throughout the year and with the latitude of the observer is presented in an article entitled NIGHT and DAY. This article can also be accessed in pdf format.

A Brief History of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory is available here.

Public feedback

Hawaii Tribune-Herald news on robotics, December 15, 2007. This news article cites the work that CSO Engineer Riley Ceria has done as mentor to the Waiakea High School robotics program.

Department of Education, May 31, 2001, expresses appreciation for CSO's educational outreach efforts in support of their teachers.

'Ainahau O Kaleponi, October 24, 2000. This group of California Hawaiians is thanking CSO for a trip to Mauna Kea and a tour of the observtory and the Hale Pohaku facility.

UH Astronomy Club, November 19, 2000, thanking CSO for a visit to the Hilo base faility.

Center for Independent Living, August 8, 2001, thanking CSO for a tour of the Hilo base facility.

UHH Upward Bound, July 22, 2000, Thanking CSO for assistance in mentoring students.

Pahoa High School, April 28, 1999, thanking CSO for conducting a summit tour for a group of Pahoa H.S. students.

University of Michigan, July 22, 2002, thanking CSO for conducting a summit tour of the observatory for University of Michigan students.

KPUA radio station, June 3, 2002, thanking CSO for for appearing on a Community Forum program.

University of Hawaii, Undersea Research Laboratory, November 2002, thanking CSO for a tour of the summit observatory.

Waikea Elementary School, March 2003, thanking CSO for Dr. Martin Houde's contribution to their Career Day ativities.

University of Hawaii, Hilo, May, 2003. The Department of Physics thanking CSO for the teaching of a course in Optics by Dr. Richard Chamberlin.

Observatorio ARVAL, Caracas, Venezuela, February 28, 2004, thanking CSO for sending copies of "Sars Over Mauna Kea", the tabloid published by the Hawaii Tribune-Herald.

Waiakea High School, October 23, 2006, commending the asistance of CSO staff engineer Riley Ceria on his assistance in developing their robotics program.


EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES

PUBLIC SERVICE

-Last updated by W. Steiger, 28 January 2010.