Mangala Sharma's Astronomy Outreach: It's Our Universe

"It's Our Universe: Discovering Astronomy at a Community Library in Appalachian Ohio"

We present a series of multi-faceted astronomy and space science outreach activities in the Athens, Ohio community for people of all ages. This pilot project is an innovative collaboration among professional astronomers at Ohio University, amateur astronomers of the Southeast Ohio Astronomical Society, and the Athens Public Library. Funding for 2006-7 is through a NASA IDEAS grant.

The program has three components:

Space Days - for grades 4-6
Cosmic Talks - for all ages
Exhibits - for all ages

All events are held at the Athens Public Library, are open to the public and free of cost. Registration is NOT required to attend any event. For more information, please call Mangala Sharma, or Maryann Hartwick (740-592-2089), or the Athens Public Library (740-592-4272).

See Mary Reed's nice article about our program in the 2006 Oct 17 edition of OU Outlook!

Space Days

A five-part series of events with inquiry-based, hands-on astronomy activities focused on children in grades 4-6.

2006 June 24: Astronaut Training - Hands-on Exploration of the Solar System

Children traveled to five 'space stations', and learned about Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and asteroids and comets.
They made a comet flip book and saw how comets orbit the Sun, developing a tail when they come close to it.

2006 July 15: Sunspotting - A Techno Journey to the Sun

Children looked at the Sun through telescopes equipped with safe solar filters.
They made pinhole cameras, tested them and used them to observe the solar disk.
They made a "Sunion" and learnt all about the Sun and its interior.

2006 Nov 04: Lunar Landing: Shooting for the Moon

Children watched how to make impact craters in flour, and learned about a hypothesis for how dinosaurs became extinct.
They counted craters on lunar maps and figured out how to tell the relative ages of the surface.
They heard all about our nearest cosmic neighbor and of the giant impact that formed it.

2007 Jan 27: Exploring the Constellations

Next Space Day: March 31, 2007 - Explore The Universe

Cosmic Talks

A quarterly public lecture series especially featuring distinguished women or minority astronomers and astronauts

The first talk, "When Will We Discover the Extraterrestrials?" was on Thursday, Nov 9 2006 by
Dr. Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer, SETI Institute

Abstract: The scientific hunt for extraterrestrial intelligence is now into its fifth decade, and we still haven't uncovered a confirmed peep from any cosmic company. Could this mean that finding aliens, even if they exist, is a project for the ages - one that might take centuries or longer? New technologies for use in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) suggest that, despite the continued dearth of signals from other societies, there is good reason to expect that success might not be far off - that we might find evidence of sophisticated civilizations within a few decades. Why this is so, what contact would tell us, and what such a discovery would mean, are the subject of this talk on the continuing efforts to establish our place in the universe of thinking beings.

Coming soon: Talk on space exploration by a NASA astronaut

Presenting... the Universe!

A two-part series of non-permanent astro exhibits with a NASA focus

2006 Oct 20 to Nov 10: Traveling exhibit from NASA Glenn Research Center, on astronomy and space exploration. Included scale models of the Mars Rovers, the Space Shuttle, a fabric replica of an astronaut's space suit, and interactive demos.

Coming in Fall: Scale of the Cosmos