Teaching Portfolio of Jane Rigby

"Stars", Astronomy 203, Fall 2003, Univ. Arizona

This was a general education course on the lives and deaths of stars. Dr. Ed Olszewski was the official instructor and I the official teaching assistant. In practice, we agreed to share the teaching, as well as development of of course material, labs, and exams. I delivered seven class lectures and conducted one of two evening exam reviews.

Texts were Wheeler's "Cosmic Catastrophes" and Kaler's "The Hundred Greatest Stars." The final project was a 4-page paper on an aspect of stellar evolution, using articles in "Astronomy" and "Sky and Telescope" as references. We stressed current events, amateur astronomy, and the "Astronomy Picture of the Day", setting as our goal that our students should become life-long readers of popular articles about astronomy and space science.

My lecture notes: Sept 2, Oct 21, Oct 23, Oct 28, Oct 30, Nov 4.

Class website.

Key letters from Astro 203 students.

"Independent Study", Astronomy 299, Spring 2005, Univ. Arizona

Astro 299 students at the MMT

A particularly enthusiastic core of Astro 203 students from Fall 2004 continued on in a custom-designed independent study class that Ed Olszewski and I designed and co-taught. The course material was largely determined by the 10 students: we suggested topics, the students picked what excited them, we prepared materials, suggested reading, and guided the give-and-take, random-walk class discussions.

Our goal was based on college physical education courses, where students learn sports they can pursue throughout their lives. We wanted to develop "lifetime followers of astronomy" -- readers of Sky & Telescope, meteor shower watchers, followers of NASA missions, readers of astronomy articles in the news.

Topics discussed included SETI, space telescopes, the Huygens probe's plunge down to Titan, satellite spotting, sundogs and other atmospheric phenomena, and amateur astronomy. One student had a particular fascination with stellar structure; I helped him install the Tycho code so he could make his own stars and watch them evolve. One student had a particular fascination with general relativity, so I encouraged him to explore web tutorials and demos.

Astro 299 students at the MMT

With the luxurious class size of ten, we made field trips a major part of the course:

We took students for an evening at the MMT. The students toured the telescope, learned how it was built and how it works, examined the 6.5 m mirror close-up, and giddily rode the MMT through a 180 degree slew at sunset. After dark, the students watched data-taking and asked how the spectrograph worked. But they were more impressed by the dark sky outside, spending hours star-gazing in the parking lot and passing around binos; some got their first look at the Milky Way. Class trip photos here.
We planned 3 different eyepiece observing trips to the Steward Observatory 60", 61", and 90" telescopes. Two were canceled for bad weather; one proceeded, but with heavy clouds, became a tour of the mountain's telescopes.
We took the students on a tour of the Steward Observatory Mirror Lab.

Highlighted emails about 299 development

Community Outreach

Volunteering at Webster Elementary, Pasadena

I consider community outreach to be a responsibility for any astronomer whose research is federally funded. Outreach improves my teaching skills and connects me with the public's curiosity about the Universe. My community outreach includes work in the Pasadena and Tucson public schools, with the Tucson Girl Scout Council, with the Tucson at-risk youth project EON, with the UA Daughters on Campus program, and with AstroFest at Penn State.

My proudest outreach accomplishment is co-founding "AstroFest" with Jane Charlton. AstroFest throws open the doors of the Penn State Astronomy department for three nights of star and planet gazing, public talks, guided tours of the solar system, and interactive demos for kids and adults. The first AstroFest, which I co-organized, was attended by 1700 people. It is now an annual event with a cumulative attendance of 11,000 people (as of 2005).

The outreach section of my CV.

Last modified: Sat Nov 15 12:11:32 PST 2008