School Physicists Astronomical Research at Kent (SPARK)

肯特大学物理学家天文研究 (SPARK)

• 批准号: ST/P006108/1
• 负责人: Dirk Froebrich
• 金额: $ 1.08万
• 依托单位: University of Kent
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2017 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ST%2FP006108%2F1
• 关键词: Physicists; Astronomical; Research; Kent; SPARK

The overarching aim of this pilot project is to investigate whether school teachers and pupils could be engaged at a suitable level to develop and deliver real research projects with the Centre for Astrophysics and Planetary Science (CAPS) in the School of Physical Sciences (SPS) at the University of Kent. In order to have students developing and delivering real observational astronomy research projects we have come up with a series of objectives over a two year period which should lead to our observatory being used by schools to conduct their own research. Firstly this project aims to produce a tool kit which will enable schools to develop research level projects to undertake at the University of Kent's Beacon Observatory which is equipped with a 17" optical Astrograph, a 4k x 4k CCD and an optical filter set. The tool kit resources will consist of a jargon free explanation of the capabilities of the telescope along with examples of projects that could be done and possible targets. This will be produced by one of our postgraduate students who has extensive experience with the observatory and who also acts as a student ambassador for various outreach events hosted by SPS. The resources will be developed in collaboration with a small focus group of teachers.To investigate the success of the toolkit some previously prepared curriculum linked project material will be introduced into three schools, with the idea that they would choose targets and plan observations. Schools targeted will be co-ed partner schools of the University of Kent based in areas of low socioeconomic status, to target students with low science capital. The schools will be visited by academics outlining the project and invited to bring a teacher and up to 10 students to spend the night (possibly two) at the University, attending workshops and running observations to collect data themselves. They will then be supported in the analysis of the data once back at their school. Once these initial projects have been run all the participants will work to develop a strategy by which schools could confidently come up with their own projects.The secondary aim of this project will then be to evaluate the impact of the project on the students, teachers and academics to help guide our future public engagement activities. Key questions to be answered will be:1. Has a suitable strategy/set of resources been developed to allow teachers and students to design an observational astronomy project to be carried out using the Beacon Observatory2. Has this project improved teachers and students knowledge of observational astronomy and the work of an astrophysicist3. Has this project contributed to the academic research of CAPS

该试点项目的首要目标是调查学校教师和学生是否可以在适当的水平上参与肯特大学物理科学学院天体物理学和行星科学中心（CAPS）的开发和交付真实的研究项目。为了让学生开发和提供真实的观测天文学研究项目，我们提出了一系列的目标，在两年的时间内，这应该导致我们的天文台被学校用来进行自己的研究。首先，该项目旨在制作一个工具包，使学校能够在肯特大学的灯塔天文台开展研究级项目，该天文台配备了一台17”光学天文仪、一台4k x 4k CCD和一套滤光片。工具包资源将包括一个行话免费解释的能力，望远镜沿着的例子，可以做的项目和可能的目标。这将由我们的研究生谁拥有丰富的经验与天文台，谁也作为学生大使由SPS主办的各种外展活动之一。这些资源将与一个小型的重点教师小组合作开发，为了调查工具包的成功与否，将向三所学校介绍一些以前准备的与课程有关的项目材料，设想由它们选择目标并计划观察。目标学校将是肯特大学在社会经济地位低的地区的男女同校伙伴学校，以针对科学资本低的学生。这些学校将由概述该项目的学者访问，并邀请一名教师和最多10名学生在大学过夜（可能是两个），参加研讨会并进行观察以收集数据。然后，他们将在回到学校后对数据进行分析。在这些初步项目完成后，所有参与者将致力制定一个策略，让学校可以自信地提出自己的项目。这个项目的第二个目的是评估项目对学生、教师和学者的影响，以帮助指导我们未来的公众参与活动。需要回答的关键问题是：1。是否制定了适当的战略/一套资源，使教师和学生能够设计一个将使用信标观测台2进行的观测天文学项目。这个项目是否提高了教师和学生对观测天文学和天体物理学家工作的认识？这个项目对CAPS的学术研究有贡献吗