The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) Local Educational Outreach Partnership

这一合作奖项授予加州理工学院和南方大学巴吞鲁日。它使位于洛杉矶利文斯顿的激光干涉仪引力波天文台(LIGO)的游客中心得以发展。该中心将包含一些实际展品，展示LIGO运作的物理科学方面、引力波的目标来源以及对其数据的分析和解释。展品将与旧金山探索博物馆合作提供。该中心及其展品将为南方大学巴吞鲁日(SuBR)经过改造的职前和在职科学教师培训提供重点。路易斯安那州董事会将通过现有的LASIP和LA GEARUP计划，协调将教师和学生运送到中心和SUBR，以最大限度地将与中心相关的活动暴露在服务不足的群体中。此外，SUBR物理和教育学学生和博士后将接受培训，担任中心的讲解员。LIGO的目标是直接探测引力波，并启动引力波天文学。LIGO由加州理工学院(分包给麻省理工学院)通过与NSF的合作协议运营。LIGO科学合作由8个国家40多个机构的约450名科学家组成。LIGO已经在运行和获取数据，同时继续改进其仪器设备，以达到其设计灵敏度。LIGO仪器的工作原理是测量仪器干涉仪镜面之间因引力波通过而产生的微小距离变化。LIGO已经可以测量小于原子核直径的百分之一的变化-在设计目标的十分之一的范围内。引力波预计将由宇宙中最猛烈的事件产生，包括黑洞、中子星、超新星和大爆炸本身的形成和合并。LIGO的科学，涉及公众已经知道的物理学的许多方面-爱因斯坦、黑洞、爆炸的恒星、大爆炸-已经吸引了公众的兴趣。利用LIGO科学和SUBR的科学教育计划来激励物理科学的教和学，特别是在路易斯安那州这样服务不足的地区，可以为类似大型项目的推广和教育活动提供重要的模式。该奖项由物理部和数学和物理科学局的多学科活动办公室共同资助。

This collaborative award to the California Institute of Technology and to Southern University Baton Rouge. It enables the development of a Visitor Center at the Livingston, LA site of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). The Center will contain hands-on exhibits depicting aspects of physical science underlying the functioning of LIGO, its target sources of gravitational waves, and the analysis and interpretation of its data. The exhibits will be provided in collaboration with the Exploratorium of San Francisco. The Center and its exhibits will then provide the focus for revamped pre-service and in-service science teacher training at Southern University Baton Rouge (SUBR). The Louisiana Board of Regents, through existing programs LaSIP and LA GEARUP, will coordinate transportation of teachers and students to the Center and to SUBR to maximize the exposure of Center-related activities to underserved groups. In addition, SUBR physics and education students and postdocs will be trained to serve as docents at the Center. LIGO's goal is the direct detection of gravitational waves and the initiation of gravitational wave astronomy. LIGO is operated by Caltech (with subcontract to MIT) through a cooperative agreement with NSF. The LIGO Scientific Collaboration comprises approximately 450 scientists in over 40 institutions in 8 countries. LIGO is already operating and taking data while continuing to refine its instrumentation to reach its design sensitivity. The LIGO instruments work by measuring exquisitely tiny changes in the distances between the mirrors of the instruments' interferometers caused by the passage of gravitational waves. LIGO can already measure changes smaller than one one-hundredth the diameter of the atomic nucleus---within a factor of ten of the design goal. Gravitational waves are expected to be produced by the universe's most violent events including the formation and mergers of black holes and neutron stars, supernovae, and the Big Bang itself. LIGO's science, involving many of those aspects of physics already known to the general public---Einstein, black holes, exploding stars, the big bang---has already captured the public's interest. Leveraging LIGO science and SUBR's science education programs to motivate teaching and learning of physical science, especially in an underserved area like Louisana, could provide an important model for the outreach and educational activities of similar large projects.This award is co-funded by the Physics Division and the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate.