By Sarah Anderson, Hawai`i Island Akamai Observatory Program
Coordinator. All images courtesy of S. Anderson/WMKO.
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| Photo: Rice, in the mirror, and Greg Wirth,
Support Astronomer at Keck Observatory, engaged in planning
an inquiry-based curriculum for the 2008 Akamai Observatory
Internship Short Course. |
At first glance the people gathered in groups of threes and
fours at round tables in the Maui hotel courtyard and on the
lawn on the other side of the koi pond could be typical vacationers
or high volume salespeople rewarded with a trip to the land
of aloha. The resort waterfall lent white background music
and the voices of deep discussion were carried along its current.
Emily Rice, seated at one of the tables, is a graduate student
in astronomy at the University of California at Los Angeles
and has often visited Hawai’i not as a tourist but as part
of a Keck observing team. She picked up a five inch round curved
mirror and brought it up to eye level. Holding the mirror at
arm’s length, the magnified image she saw of her eye was upside
down. As she brought the mirror closer the image blurred briefly
and then popped back into focus, right side up. Across the
table, Greg Wirth, a support astronomer with the Keck Observatory,
picked up another mirror and checked out the phenomena as the
discussion continued.
The fifty people in the courtyard were participants in a workshop
designed to provide innovative teaching tools for science education.
Composed largely of science and engineering graduate students,
they will be tomorrow’s university professors and will influence
thousands of undergraduates over the course of their careers.
How they will teach their science courses will impact other
students who are pursuing careers in science, as well as students
who are preparing to be K-12 teachers.
Complimenting the group of graduate students were a handful
of science and engineering professionals including college
instructors and post doctoral researchers who were also interested
in honing their educational talents.
The Professional Development Program (PDP) is one of the components
of a multi-strand education program developed at the Center
for Adaptive Optics (CfAO) on the campus of the University
of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC) and funded through a grant
from the National Science Foundation. The Center’s broad goal
is to encourage, retain and develop students in the science
and engineering fields, with a focus on those from backgrounds
not traditionally represented in these disciplines. One of
the program’s strategies is to offer a professional development
workshop in science education to graduate students and interested
professionals and then leverage these individuals into other
programs to impact a larger population of undergraduates.
The 2008 Professional Development Program Workshop opened with
a keynote address by Dr. Randy Phelps, an astronomer and staff
associate with the Office
of Integrative Activities at the National Science Foundation
(NSF). Only a decade or so older than some of the students,
with snappy blue eyes and a relaxed delivery, he drew a parallel
between the early Hawaiian navigators, their remarkable understanding
of astronomy and the roomful of participants’ own commitment
to discovery. He described how the workshop is an excellent
example of the type of program the NSF is proud to support
because it bridges academic and research environments to the
workplace and provides scientists and engineers with teaching
and communication tools to enhance the technology expertise
of the United States.
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| Photo: The 2008 Center for Adaptive Optics
Professional Development Program participants, the next
generation of science and technology educators. |
The
2008 workshop was held over four days in March. New participants
were invited to attend a one day introductory session the previous
November that highlighted different approaches to hands-on
learning. Participants then enroll in the workshop and are
encouraged to return in subsequent years to practice the principles
and techniques they have learned. During the 2008 workshop
students followed one of two learning pathways depending on
their new or returning status. A primary focus for all was
participation in planning a hands-on inquiry science or engineering
teaching experience based on the CfAO model. Following the
workshop the graduate students then put their knowledge into
practice in an actual teaching venue that the CfAO has either
created independently or developed in partnership with existing
educational organizations.
CfAO related teaching venues available to workshop participants
span the Pacific Ocean and reflect the educational cross-pollination
between the West Coast and the Islands that the organization
embraces. Local venues include the Maui and Big Island Akamai
Internship short courses, Maui Community College electro-optics
instrumentation courses, and the Maui high school bridge programs.
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Photo: Lisa Hunter, Education Director
for the Center for Adaptive Optics, on a break between
Maui workshop activities, believes how we teach directly
influences the diversity of students drawn to the fields
of science and engineering.
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Lisa Hunter, who is the Director of Education at the CfAO and
provides its overall coordination and leadership, reported, “By
working with graduate students we hope to make a significant
change in how science is taught in college. We are convinced
that the way that we teach college science affects the diversity
of people in the sciences, and whether students who start off
in science majors stick with it.” Another critically important
role of college science courses is in the preparation of future
K-12 teachers. “The closest most science teachers will ever
get to doing real science is in a college laboratory course — yet
in looking at how teachers are prepared, this is not really
getting any attention,” said Hunter.
Until now. On the surface, the 2008 PDP workshop may have appeared
like a vacation for scientists and engineers, but the work
being done around the resort koi pond by the fifty participants
is key to the development of an effective science and technology
workforce in Hawai’i.
For more information on the programs of the Center for Adaptive
Optics, contact Lisa Hunter at (808) 573-9542, hunter@ifa.hawaii.edu
or Sarah Anderson at (808) 881 -3839 or sanderson@keck.hawaii.edu. 
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