School Physicists Astronomical Research at Kent (SPARK)

这个试点项目的总体目标是调查学校教师和学生是否能够在适当的水平上参与到肯特大学物理科学学院天体物理学和行星科学中心（CAPS）的开发和交付真正的研究项目中。为了让学生们发展和完成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，这将使我们的天文台被学校用来进行他们自己的研究。首先，该项目旨在生产一个工具包，使学校能够开发研究水平的项目，在肯特大学的灯塔天文台进行，该天文台配备了一个17英寸的光学占星仪，一个4k x 4k CCD和一个光学滤光片组。工具包资源将包括对望远镜功能的无术语解释，以及可以完成的项目和可能目标的示例。这将由我们的一名研究生制作，他在天文台有丰富的经验，并担任SPS举办的各种外展活动的学生大使。这些资源将与一个由教师组成的小组合作开发。为了调查该工具包的成功，一些先前准备的课程相关项目材料将被引入三所学校，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男女同校的合作学校，目标是科学资本较低的学生。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名学生在大学度过一晚（可能是两晚），参加研讨会并自己进行观察以收集数据。一旦回到学校，他们将在数据分析方面得到支持。一旦这些最初的项目开始运行，所有参与者将努力制定一项战略，使学校能够自信地提出自己的项目。这个项目的第二个目标是评估项目对学生、教师和学者的影响，以帮助指导我们未来的公众参与活动。要回答的关键问题将是：1。是否已制定合适的策略/一套资源，让教师和学生设计一个使用信标天文台进行的观测天文学项目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？这个项目对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