Education & Events
The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington maintain an active public outreach program designed to interest the general public in astronomy, provide science education activities and resources for underserved elementary grade students, and strengthen undergraduate curricula for astronomy majors at local colleges.
Each year since 2003, the Observatories have offered a free public lecture series that enables Southern Californians to hear about recent findings in astronomy directly from professional astronomers. There are four lectures each spring (16 total to-date, through 2006), held at the lecture hall of the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, CA. Approximately 4000 attendees (avg. 250 per lecture) have come to hear presentations on such topics as black holes, supernovae, and extra-solar planets. Thousands of brochures describing the lectures are mailed each season, and announcements are included in regional newsletters that reach tens of thousands more.
In conjunction with this lecture series, the Carnegie Observatories host a local educational program with the Pasadena Unified School District’s Longfellow Elementary School. This effort, geared mainly to 5th graders, includes in-school visits from Carnegie staff astronomers, educational activities at the Huntington before the general lectures, star parties, and field trips to Carnegie’s historic campus in Pasadena.
The Observatories also work with Pomona and Harvey Mudd Colleges–both located in nearby Claremont, CA, and both of which have undergraduate astronomy programs–to conduct a joint research seminar for upper-level undergraduate students. For the 2006 spring academic semester, eight Carnegie staff astronomers delivered lectures on topical areas in cosmology and extragalactic astronomy. The program also offers the students opportunities to conduct original research under the supervision of staff members–a chance for high-level, hands-on research that the students would not ordinarily receive at two colleges with strong liberal arts programs.
In addition to these activities, Carnegie also hosts an annual Open House for those in the local community, trains docents and educators from local institutions (such as the Griffith Observatory and the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles), and provides astronomy lecturers for community groups whenever possible.
- For more information about the Observatories' lecture series, Open House, or other outreach activites, please contact Arnie Phifer at phifer[at]ociw.edu
- If your are an educator in the Los Angeles area looking for an astronomer to visit your classroom, please send an e-mail to John Mulchaey at mulchaey[at]ociw.edu
