School Physicists Astronomical Research at Kent (SPARK)

这一试点项目的主要目的是调查学校教师和学生是否能够在适当的水平上与肯特大学物理科学学院的天体物理和行星科学中心(CAPS)合作开发和实施真正的研究项目。为了让学生发展和提供真正的观测天文学研究项目，我们在两年的时间里提出了一系列目标，这些目标应该会导致我们的天文台被学校用来进行自己的研究。首先，这个项目旨在制作一个工具包，使学校能够开发研究水平的项目，以便在肯特大学的Beacon天文台进行，该天文台配备了17英寸光学天文照相器、4k x 4k电荷耦合器件和光学滤光片装置。工具包资源将包括对望远镜能力的无术语解释，以及可以完成的项目和可能的目标的例子。这将由我们的一名研究生制作，他在天文台有丰富的经验，也是SPS主办的各种外展活动的学生大使。这些资源将与一小群教师合作开发。为了调查工具包的成功与否，将向三所学校介绍一些先前准备的与课程相关的项目材料，他们将选择目标并计划观察。目标学校将是位于社会经济地位较低地区的肯特大学的男女同校合作学校，针对的是科学资本较低的学生。概述该项目的学者将访问这些学校，并邀请他们带一名教师和最多10名学生在大学过夜(可能是两名)，参加研讨会并进行观察，以收集自己的数据。一旦他们回到学校，他们将在数据分析方面得到支持。一旦这些初步计划实施后，所有参与者将致力于制定一项策略，使学校能够自信地提出自己的计划。这项计划的次要目标将是评估计划对学生、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利用灯塔观测站开展的观测天文学项目2。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？本项目对CAPS的学术研究有贡献吗？

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