Undergraduate College and University Programs
The Harlow Shapley Visiting Lectureships in Astronomy
A program of two day visits by professional astronomers can bring the excitement of the modern astronomer's view of the cosmos to any host undergraduate college campuses (community colleges, teachers' colleges, liberal arts colleges and universities, institution not offering an astronomical degree). Information on the Harlow Shapley Visiting Lectureship program is available here.
Workshop for New Faculty in Physics and Astronomy
The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), in conjunction with the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and the American Physical Society (APS), hold a workshop for new physics and astronomy faculty members in November each year at the American Center for Physics. Now in its eighth year, this annual conference helps new faculty understand how students learn physics and astronomy and suggests how this information can impact a new professor's teaching methods. The workshop is funded by the National Science Foundation's Division of Undergraduate Education.
Nominations of faculty to attend the Workshop should be submitted by department heads before the third week of September. The capacity of the Workshop is limited, and nominations are generally accepted in the order in which they are received. For more information, please contact the AAPT Programs Department at aapt-prog@aapt.org or the AAS Education Office at aased@aas.org.
Please see the AAPT website for information about the workshop.
Goals for Astronomy 101
Workshops on the teaching of introductory astronomy were held in 2001 for astronomy department chairs and other leaders at selected major research universities to discuss the goals for "Astro 101" courses. The list of goals drawn up by the participants can be found here. The full report authored by Bruce Partridge and George Greenstein has been published in the Astronomy Education Review, volume 2, Issue 2, 2003.
comPADRE
comPADRE (Communities for Physics and Astronomy Digital Resources in Education)
comPADRE will create a network of well-organized digital collections of high-quality educational materials in physics and astronomy. The project is the cooperative effort of the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Astronomical Society, the American Institute of Physics and the American Physical Society. Funding is provided in part by the National Science Foundation and the American Physical Society.
comPADRE houses collections of materials, connecting a wide range of digital resources including curricular materials, digital libraries and online journals. Current collections are:
- Astronomy Center for undergraduate instructors of introductory astronomy
- The Quantum Exchange for undergraduate quantum physics
- The Physics Front for the teaching of K-12 physics and physical science
- The Nucleus by and for undergraduate students majoring in physics and astronomy
- Physics To Go for the public
- Physics Teacher Education Coalition, aimed at improving the education of future physics and physical science teachers.
- PER Central, a collection of information and resources for physical sciences education research.
- the Physical Science Resource Center (PSRC) is the central databank for the comPADRE project
For more information about AstronomyCenter, please contact Dr. Jennifer Grier, email at grier@aas.org.
- Principal Investigator: Bruce Mason
- Co-PI: Susana Deustua, AAS
- Co-PI: Jack Hehn, AIP
- Co-PI: Warren Hein, AAPT
- Co-PI: Ted Hodapp, APS