Space Science
for
Teachers

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Workshop Description

Application
Summer 2007

Contact Information

• The Space Science for Teachers workshop is a two-week long, professional development workshop for teachers in grades 6-9. It is held at the MathScience Innovation Center in Richmond, Virginia.
• You will develop new knowledge and skills that will help you more effectively address the Virginia Standards of Learning related to space science and astronomy.
• The workshop will allow you to use readily available innovative technologies to learn the night sky, plus strategies to help your students experience firsthand the beauty and wonder of the night sky.
• The instructors will demonstrate how to use your new knowledge and skills to teach space science and astronomy in an effective, hands-on, inquiry-based manner.
• The workshop schedule includes
  • Inquiry-based classes on space science and astronomy content
  • Instruction on innovative methods for teaching space science.
  • Time for developing your own lesson plans to address specific space science related SOLs.
  • Hands-on practice with a variety of telescopes under the night sky.
  • A session in the StarLab inflatable planetarium.

• You will receive 3 hours of graduate credit in astronomy (ASTR 574)
• Free housing is available
• You will receive hundreds of dollars worth of classroom equipment, including:

  • Space science textbook
  • Starry Night planetarium software
  • Planisphere
  • Project Star Materials

• Attend all weekday sessions and one evening observing session.
• Develop lesson plans and activities and try them out in your classroom
• Attend a one day follow-up workshop

Costs

• Graduate credit requires a reduced tuition of $150. School divisions are required to pay or reimburse the educator for the cost of tuition.

The summer 2005 program is offered by the Virginia Earth Science Collaborative which is a partnership of nine institutes of higher education and non-profits and more than seventy school divisions. Initial funding is provided through a competitive Mathematics and Science Partnership (MSP) grant funded through Title II, Part B of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Additional funding comes from the F. H. Levinson Fund of the Peninsula Community Foundation, the School of Continuing and Professional Studies, Curry School of Education, and the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia.