Lowell Observatory Navajo and Hopi Astronomy Outreach Program

July 2016—June 2017

The Partnerships

During the 2016-17 school year we had 8 partnerships.

In traditional Navajo-Hopi partnerships, the astronomer and teacher together choose hands-on activities to do during individual classroom visits by the astronomer. In the traditional model, astronomers make at least 4 trips to the school throughout the school year to lead the selected activities. Each activity is standalone and is carried out during part of one school day. In the summer of 2016, we designed a new Project Based Learning curriculum package for the Navajo-Hopi program designed to enhance students’ ability to see themselves as scientists. The curriculum, which focuses on self-directed exploration, is tied to state, Common Core, Next Generation Science, and Diné standards, and involves reading, writing, math, and science. It was designed to be implemented as a week-long project for 5th grade centered on the characteristics of the planets in the solar system. Three of our partnerships served as tests for this new curriculum, beginning with a partnership between the designers of the unit, Todd Gonzales and Verna Tallsalt.

Travis Brown

Travis Brown partnered with Mary Washburn and her combined 3rd and 4th grade class of 20 students in a traditional partnership at Kaibeto Boarding School. This school is a 2.5-hour drive from Flagstaff. He came once a week for a three hour and twenty-minute afternoon session for the spring semester of 2017, which allowed for an explanation and completion of one and sometimes two activities. Travis was able to visit and return to Flagstaff in the same day. Ordinarily we do not work with such young grades, but Ms. Washburn had signed up in the spring when she was expecting to teach 6th grade and then found herself teaching 3rd/4th and asked to continue in the program. Since we had someone to partner with her and no teacher on the waiting list, we allowed this to go forward.

Travis accomplished the following activities in the course of his many visits:

• What do we know/How do we know it/What do we want to know? Each student was given the opportunity to establish a baseline of knowledge and special interests. Travis introduced the Scientific Method of inquiry and revisited the list of things the students wanted to know throughout the semester until all of the initial questions were answered. • Black Box activity: Students learned about indirect evidence and the frustration of never knowing the answer by analyzing the shape of foam pieces inside opaque boxes by rattling an internal marble against them. • Navajo Constellations: Students constructed planispheres of Greek and Navajo constellations, and each chose one Navajo constellation to study and created a sand painting of it. These were all displayed in the school hallway afterward. • Orbits: Students orbited around Travis in an outdoor field, faster when closer and slower when farther out. They learned about radial proximity, elliptical and circular orbits, and the usual inevitability of celestial objects to go in the same direction in solar systems. • Scale Model of the Solar System: Students laid out the 1000-yard model of the solar system on the school campus. • Edible Rovers: Students studied the form & function of landers and rovers that have landed on other bodies and designed and then built them out of food (graham crackers, frosting for glue, etc.) This gave students an understanding of the purpose and complexity of existing rovers and an experience with engineering. • Egg Drop: Students designed and built ‘landers’ for uncooked eggs and Travis dropped them from the highest part of their playground. Students learned of the importance of deceleration length. • Crater Modeling: Students took turns dropping pebble ‘meteors’ into flour coated with a thin layer of cocoa. They learned about crater circularity, ejecta lines, and crater dating techniques. • Methods of Flight: Students discussed gravity and the various methods of flight. Travis built and launched a hot air balloon made from a trash bag, aluminum foil, and birthday candles. Students learned about hot air rising. • The Reasons for the Seasons: Students proposed possible reasons for the seasons and Travis explored each scientifically until the students concluded axial tilt was the culprit. • Moon Phases: Students were each given a ‘moon on a stick’ and were made to understand the reason for moon phases. • Venus’ atmosphere: In order to safely demonstrate the effects of acids (as found in that planet’s atmosphere) students were taken outside and shown Styrofoam dissolving in acetone. • RADAR: In order to demonstrate how scientists perceive Venus’ surface through opaque clouds students fabricated landscapes in boxes, then gleaned a rough idea of the landscapes by poking skewers through the boxes’ opaque lids. • Virtual Orbital Simulation: Students participated in a trial-and-error construction, launch, and eventual orbit and safe landing of a virtual rocket in the rocket simulation program Kerbal Space Program. They learned of the importance of aerodynamics, thrust-to- weight ratio, staging, boosters & explosive bolts, fins, landing legs, and parachutes. They came away with an understanding of the importance of Newton’s Third Law in space and how thrust in different parts of an orbit affects periapsis and apoapsis. • Chemical Rockets: Students built, launched, and retrieved a model rocket, realizing their conception of rocketry built in Kerbal Space Program. • Star party: Travis coordinated with NAU’s AIMER program to produce a school/community-wide daytime star party and evening bottle rocket construction and launch.

Field Trip to Lowell Observatory

Travis and Navajo-Hopi educator Alma Ruiz-Velasco coordinated a visit of their respective classes, both from Kaibeto Boarding School, to Lowell Observatory and showed them the historic 121-year old 24” Clark Refractor and the 13” Pluto Discovery Astrograph. They were able to see sunspots through the Observatory’s Coronado solar telescope and were shown the Cosmic Cart program, including demonstrations of surface conditions on different planets with liquid nitrogen, dry ice, and a vacuum chamber.

Kelly Ferguson

Kelly Ferguson partnered with Ms. Debra Chee and her 23 5th graders at Newcomb Elementary School, a 3.75-hr drive from Flagstaff. This was one of our partnerships testing the new curriculum unit. Unfortunately, there were several turns of fate that limited this partnership. The first was that the week of January 23-27 when Kelly went out for her partnership was the week of a major snowstorm in northern Arizona. The result was that Kelly was able to work with her class on only one day. Kelly felt that what time she had with the students went very well, “The kids really seemed to love the atmosphere in a bottle experiment and it got them thinking about their final project.” The second turn of events was that in early spring Ms. Chee left her position at the school in order to take care of her husband, and her substitute did not respond to attempts from Kelly to communicate. Therefore, the class also did not come to Lowell Observatory on their field trip.

Todd Gonzales

Todd Gonzales partnered with Verna Tallsalt at Jeehdeez’a Academy at Low Mountain, a 2.75- hr drive from Flagstaff. The class was a 4th and 5th grade combo of 24 students. Todd was piloting a new curriculum unit that blended culture with science. Todd designed the unit to be taught consecutively over 5 days while incorporating writing and reading standards with science, and Verna designed the Diné parts. Because of the consecutive nature of the teaching, Todd stayed in Chinle, 30 minutes away, and commuted everyday for a week.

October 24th. Todd administered a pre-assessment to gauge the students’ background on the planets of the solar system. Afterward, the students began to work on foundational knowledge of “What a characteristic is” and “comparing and contrasting characteristics.” Students used National Parks brochures to get a sense of what natural characteristics bring people to visit such places.

October 25th. Todd had the students begin reading as a group about the various characteristics of the planets, pausing every so often to explain words the students had not heard before. The students then began to make concept maps and Venn diagrams of the characteristics of Earth and Mars from what they had just read.

October 26th. Todd led a demonstration of how to build a planet in a bottle. Todd added soil, plant material and a bit of water to a bottle. The last step was to add active yeast (a living thing) to see if it would flourish and produce CO2 gas as a result. The students were aware that the bottle contained Earth-like characteristics and that they needed to repeat the experiment with Mars-like characteristics. The students thought carefully and used their concept maps to come up with a Mars-like environment. They added dry dirt, fully sublimated dry ice, and UV from a flashlight. They added the yeast and made sure the bottle was somewhere cold.

Mars bottle and UV light.

October 27th. Todd led the students through the last planet in the unit, Venus. The students carefully crafted bottles that simulated the environment of Venus: hot, dry and acidic.

Venus in a bottle on a heating pad.

October 28th. Verna began instruction on cultural characteristics of the planets. This final day was reserved for students to begin work on their final project, a poster of one of the learned planets. This poster was to be like the National Park Brochures, but with a Diné and scientific flavor. Students would design this culturally relevant science poster and then explain to Lowell astronomers why their planet would be culturally important and the best one for colonization. We ran out of time for the week and so Verna and Todd set up another date to finish the final project.

December 14th. Todd and Alethia Little put on a star party at Jeehdeez’a Academy around 7 pm. About 20 students and parents turned out for the event. The skies were challenging and partly cloudy.

March 30th. Todd returned to Jeehdeez’a Academy and helped the posters get off to a great start. The students were very excited to draw the posters. However, they were nervous about speaking to astronomers.

Field Trip to Lowell Observatory

May 9th. Verna brought her class to Lowell Observatory for the end of year field trip. The students set up their posters in the HCPS building at Lowell Observatory. Todd and Verna gave the students a pep talk and the astronomers came in and asked the students to explain their posters. The students were shy at first, but then they opened up and began to take real ownership of what they did. All of the astronomers that visited were impressed. The astronomers also presented their own posters that showed the students that astronomers frequently use posters to explain their research. The purpose of this was to show the students that they too were scientists.

Todd met the students at Peter Piper Pizza for dinner before going out to the research site, Anderson Mesa, to view through telescopes. The night was a bit cloudy, but it cleared up later on and the students got to view the Moon and Jupiter. Todd took the students into the warmth of the 72-inch dome where Alethia had prepared fruit for a snack and hot cocoa. Todd told them a story about the creation of stars and passed out some wint-o-green lifesavers. With the lights out, students crunched the lifesavers and watched them create sparks between their teeth. The students were tired after their long day, and Todd and Alethia waved goodbye as the bus departed.

Samantha Gorney

Samantha Gorney partnered with Ms. Mary Kate Suhy and her 5th grade class of 24 students at Navajo Elementary School in Navajo, New Mexico. This school was a 3.5-hour drive from Flagstaff. This was one of our partnerships testing the new curriculum unit. Because it was designed to be a week-long unit, Samantha conducted all of her visits during a single week in January. The class spent a total of about 6 hours working on the project over the course of that week. Alethia Little accompanied Samantha on all of her visits and taught the students about cultural concepts related to the project.

January 9. The curriculum was designed to be spread out over a week but Samantha was not able to conduct a classroom visit on the Monday of the week she visited because it was an early release day.

January 10. Samantha and Alethia introduced themselves and explained what an observatory is and what scientists do. The students examined several National Park brochures and constructed Venn diagrams in order to identify the similarities and differences between the brochures. This exercise was designed to teach the students about the term “characteristic.” After the students became comfortable with the term, the group identified some of the characteristics of the Earth and the students shared which of these characteristics are most important to them. The class identified water as being a very important characteristic.

January 11. The class revisited the characteristics of the Earth and again discussed which of these characteristics are most important to them. Alethia shared a Navajo story about the origin of water with the class. They then discussed what water is made of and this lead to a discussion about atoms and then to a discussion about things in science that are not visible to the naked eye. The students played a hide-and-seek-like game to explore how scientists can detect things without being able to see them. They explored this concept further through investigations with magnets and at the end of the exploration they had a discussion about the magnetic field of the Earth. Alethia led a discussion about the Navajo cardinal directions. Samantha attempted to do a demonstration with a cloud chamber to reinforce the idea that there are ways to detect things that are not visible to the eye but the demonstration did not work.

January 12. Samantha demonstrated how it is possible to capture some of the characteristics of the Earth in an empty plastic water bottle. As a group they decided to put dirt, water and plant material in the Earth bottle. Samantha then explained how yeast could be used to test if the conditions in the bottle are conducive to life. They added yeast to the Earth bottle and then placed a balloon over the opening of the bottle. The balloon allowed them to detect if the conditions were right for life as the balloon would inflate if the yeast was thriving. The students were given a NASA lithograph for the planet Mars and they read through it to determine what the planet’s characteristics are. Alethia introduced the Navajo word for Mars. In groups, the students used what they learned from the lithographs to create Mars bottles. The same process (yeast and balloon) was used to measure whether the conditions on Mars would support life. Samantha had planned on finishing Venus bottles during this class period but there was not enough time.

January 13. The students examined the bottles they had put together the day before and performed a qualitative analysis of the balloons. The state of the Earth balloon (slightly inflated) indicated that the conditions in the bottle were right for life. The mostly non-inflated Mars balloons indicated that it would be difficult for life to survive on the planet. The students were given a NASA lithograph for the planet Venus and they read through it to determine what the planet’s characteristics are. Alethia introduced the Navajo word for Venus. In groups, the students used what they learned from the lithographs to create Venus bottles. The same process (yeast and balloon) was used to measure whether the conditions on Venus would support life. The class period was not long enough for them to get accurate results for the Venus bottles but they were able to make predictions about how life would fare on Venus based on what they had learned about the planet. The students were then asked to choose a planet (Mars or Venus) to create a settlement on. Working in groups, they created posters that showed the characteristics of their planet and how they would adapt to those characteristics.

May 4. Samantha and Alethia traveled to Navajo Elementary School and hosted a star party for the community. The star party was held from 7:00 to 9:30 pm. Alethia pointed out Navajo constellations and led rounds of Navajo Bingo. Samantha helped people view the Moon and Jupiter through portable telescopes. More than 30 people attended the star party.

Field Trip to Lowell Observatory

April 20. Ms. Suhy, 23 of her students, and 5 chaperones visited Lowell Observatory. A Lowell educator led a science demonstration program for the group and then took them on a Clark Telescope tour. The students set up their posters in a meeting room on the Lowell campus and astronomers and educators were invited to come and discuss the posters with the students. After dinner, the group traveled out to Anderson Mesa where they were able to see two research telescopes, do telescope viewing, watch liquid nitrogen demonstrations, and do crafts.

Alethia Little

This school year Alethia Little partnered with Ms. Cora Charley and her 6th grade class of 21 students at Aneth Community School in Aneth, Utah, a 4-hr drive from Flagstaff. This was a traditional partnership. Alethia’s narrative for the school year is not currently available. However, she made more classroom visits than anyone else, approximately two per month. Many of her activities are ones that she designed herself. The class came on their field trip to Lowell in March. Alethia also supported the Navajo cultural parts of two of the new curriculum partnerships and star parties of several other partnerships. She also participated in the curriculum review in May. Currently, she is observing and participating in summer camps on the Navajo Nation in order to design Lowell’s summer camp for 6th graders for next summer. On July 31 she will also lead the group from Navajo-Hopi Astronomy Outreach conducting a star party at the second annual Youth & Elders Conference sponsored by the Navajo Nation Office of the President.

Michael Mommert

Michael partnered with Mr. Elijah Allan and Ms. Kayla Begay of the "Dził Ditł'ooí School of Empowerment Action and Perseverance" (DEAP) in Navajo, New Mexico. This new charter school has a total of 24 6th grade students forming a single class. All the students enjoy an education that is strongly influenced by Navajo traditions. While Ms. Begay is in charge of teaching English and Navajo, Mr. Allan is the science teacher of the school; naturally, Michael was in closer contact with Mr. Allan. Due to family constraints and the long drive to Navajo (3 hrs one way), Michael was able to visit the school only three times, two of which were planned as star parties with Navajo traditional elements. This was a traditional partnership.

October 26: On his first visit to DEAP, Michael and a colleague from South Africa brought materials to build a 100-yd model of the Solar System. After introducing themselves, both presented the students maps of different scales, showing the Navajo Nation, the US, and eventually the whole world - indicating where Michael (who is originally from Germany) and his colleague Nic came from. The motivation behind this exercise was to make the students aware that maps are just models, a representation of reality. This model concept was then applied to the Solar System. During the 3 hr visit, the students painted Styrofoam spheres in the colors of the planets after real pictures taken by spacecraft. During this hands-on exercise, the properties and compositions of these planets was discussed. Eventually, the planets where taken outside to build a 100-yd model of the Solar System. The students were amazed by the fact that the largest fraction of the volume of the Solar System is merely empty space. Mr. Allan provided excellent support during this class visit.

November 17-18: Unfortunately, neither Mr. Allan nor Ms. Begay were able to attend the Navajo-Hopi Teacher Workshop offered at Lowell Observatory. At the workshop, Michael presented a hands-on experiment related to cratering. As part of the experiment, the origin of craters and their existence on different Solar System bodies was discussed. Craters were then produced by dropping marbles of different sizes into a bed of flour. A relation between the drop height or marble size and the crater diameter was found.

December 15: Michael's second visit to the DEAP school was planned as a star party, which was combined with a traditional evening at the school. Unfortunately, the weather was bad, so telescopes could not be used that night. However, the visit by Verna Tallsalt, who talked about Navajo astronomy, was very much appreciated. The evening was mostly spent with traditional activities, including the baking of a corn cake underneath a large fire.

January 26: The second attempt for a star party failed again due to weather. Instead, Michael used the time to talk about the working principles of telescopes and contemporary observatories. Together with Mr. Allan, Michael talked about the origin of the phases of the Moon as well as the inner planets, as well as the seasons and the traditional beliefs behind these phenomena.

Field Trip to Lowell Observatory

May 17: All students from DEAP and 6 chaperones were invited to visit Lowell Observatory and its telescopes on Anderson Mesa. Due to the small size of the school and its lack of a school bus, it was necessary for the Navajo-Hopi program to charter a bus to bring the students to Flagstaff. The school was greeted at Thorpe Park with sandwiches for lunch and then they toured the Lowell campus, including a visit to the Clarke telescope and a presentation on life in the universe. The Sun could be observed through holes in the clouds with a solar telescope. After dinner, the students were brought to Anderson Mesa, where they were able to see the 72-inch Perkins telescope, the 42-inch telescope, experiments with liquid nitrogen, diffraction experiments, and Navajo Bingo. Due to the bad weather (again), night sky observations were not possible, but the students enjoyed the visit. The next day, the school toured Northern Arizona University and visited the Navajo Cultural Center there.

Alma Ruiz Velasco

Dr. Alma Ruiz Velasco partnered with Ms. Esther Peaches and her 6th grade class of 30 students at Kaibeto Boarding School in a traditional partnership. This school was a bit over a 2-hr drive from Flagstaff, located north of Tuba City. Each class was 50 minutes long. Two trips were canceled due to bad weather and a star party was not possible because of difficulties finding an adequate date that could fit in the schedules of both parties.

This was the first time Alma had a group of her own and it served as a great experience. She is more aware of the things she cannot control, of the things she has to do to plan events such as the visit to Lowell, and when it is appropriate to talk about Navajo culture. Alma is looking forward to working with this program in the next school year.

November 10. This was the first visit, and served mainly to introduce Alma to the group and talk about her research. She gave a short explanation about stellar evolution and the future of the Sun using a Hoberman sphere as a visual aid. Later the class had some time to ask questions, mainly about the Solar System and the status of Pluto. As a side note, Alma ended up giving her presentation to the 7th-8th grade group as well; they work from 12:45 to 2:15 pm. This happened because she got lost and was also unaware of a small road that connected Kaibeto with Tonalea that could have made the trip shorter. After discussing this issue with the teacher, and planning the next visits, the trip back to Flagstaff went smoothly.

February 16. During this visit the group worked on the phases of the Moon using part of the materials obtained during the Teachers’ Workshop. The group made a semi-circle around a lamp located in the front part of the classroom and each student held a Styrofoam ball in front of them. The students were told to change angles as well as spin around in order to see the changes in shadow on the ball.

April 25. This was the last visit and the group built a 1000-yard model of the Solar System outside in the playgrounds. They used the materials given during the Teachers’ Workshop. The group had to count the steps out loud and some kids were assigned the task to use a rope to measure the distance. The rope had several knots marking each meter. Because this activity took longer and the group had to come back to take their next class, they had to stop the activity after reaching Saturn. Before coming back to the classroom, Ms. Peaches and Alma emphasized to the students how far they had to walk in order to reach the rest of the planets (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto).

Field Trip to Lowell Observatory

March 14. During this visit the two groups from Kaibeto Boarding School came to Lowell: the 6th grade assigned to Alma and the 3rd/4th grade group assigned to Travis. There were around 40 children and 4 adults, including both teachers Ms. Peaches and Ms. Washburn.

Since some of the children were too young to be allowed to stay overnight, the visit to Lowell consisted only of tours to the Clark Telescope, the discovery of Pluto, a Slipher Vision presentation, and science demos. The group left around 1 pm.

Kevin Schindler

Kevin Schindler worked with the three 5th-grade classes at Newcomb Elementary School in Newcomb, New Mexico, located about 240 miles from Flagstaff. This was a Navajo-Hopi Outreach traditional partnership. Ms. Kristen Simo initially served as the partner teacher, but due to limited available time in her schedule, passed this on to Ms. Philarena Plummer. Sixty students participated in sessions lasting two to three hours each. These large group sizes required breaking up into smaller groups in order to participate in activities.

October 3. On this initial visit, Kevin gave a general overview of what astronomers do and showed pictures of several astronomers, including Native Americans who have gone into the field. Kevin also reviewed how astronomy is part of our everyday life, briefly demonstrating principles of celestial navigation (positions of the Sun, Moon, and constellations) and timekeeping (moon phases, days of the week, months, year). Kevin finished with a Q & A period that the students responded well to.

January 30. The activities focused on the extreme conditions of space. Topics included temperatures, pressures, and ices. One activity involved mixing dry ice, dirt, and other materials to create comets. This was useful for introducing different elements and ices in space. Another activity used liquid nitrogen with a variety of everyday items – balloon, banana, flowers, etc. – to demonstrate the frigidity of space. A third activity focused on air pressure by using a vacuum chamber and balloons to show how different celestial bodies have different air pressure. A fourth activity, also demonstrating air pressure, used aluminum cans in which a small amount of water was added and then heated. This was a popular activity for the students and, in many cases, they were able to not only observe but participate. Finally, Kevin set up a 10-inch telescope and introduced telescope viewing. The students looked at distant mountains and, using a solar filter, the Sun.

February 15. This evening visit was originally scheduled for earlier in the month but was postponed by the school due to a scheduling conflict with another event. The rescheduled visit was cancelled on this night due to poor weather.

February 24. On this visit the group learned about moon phases, with several students standing in as the Moon, Sun (with a flashlight), and Earth to visualize the sequence of phases. The students also made their own paper moon clocks and then went outside to view the Moon through a 10-inch telescope.

March 6. Travis Brown joined the activities on this visit and presented a session about seasons. After reviewing the reasons for the seasons, the students were split up into four groups. Travis drew a large circle on paper on the floor, split this up into four segments—each representing a season—and then listed the three zodiacal constellations prominent for each season. Each student group then drew in aspects of each season that they thought important. After this activity, students went outside to look through telescopes at the Moon.

April 6. Travis Brown again participated, leading activities in rockets and gravity. After an introduction by Travis about the topics, students designed and built their own rockets out of water bottles and balsa wood (for wings). The entire group then went outside and each student pumped up his/her own rocket with water and then launched it. The students then evaluated the reasons that each rocket succeeded or failed to fly (some flew spectacularly high and far, others went nowhere).

April 28. This night’s star party was rescheduled from earlier in the month, when school officials realized they had a conflict with another school event. The party was cancelled this night because of snow and rain that made the road to the school impassable.

May 19. On this visit, the students learned about scales of the solar system, including both the relative sizes of the planets and distances between these bodies. First, Kevin and students went to the school’s football field and Kevin introduced the concept of scale models. For the activity, the football field would represent the size of the solar system from the Sun (one goal line) to Pluto (the other goal line). The group broke up into three smaller sections and, starting at one goal line and using calculations of the distance to each planet, paced down the field, with one student from each group representing each planet and staying at the appropriate location. The students responded well to this activity because they could easily envision the relative distances between the planets. Everyone then gathered back in one end zone and discussed how far away further star systems and galaxies would be located. The group then headed back inside the school and broke up into five groups. Each group worked together to build their own set of planets—to correct size proportions—out of Play-Doh. This allowed students to understand the relative size range of the planets. Finally, to visualize a scale model that incorporates both distance and size, the groups then generated hypotheses about the relative sizes of Earth and the Moon, and, using the same scale, the distance between the two. They then made accurate Play-Doh models of the two bodies and measured out the distance between the two. While the Play-Doh activities can be an exercise in controlled chaos, the effort resulted in amazing team building and problem solving.

Field Trip to Lowell Observatory

May 4. After meeting Kevin at a nearby park for lunch, the group headed to Lowell and participated in a program about life in the universe and then toured different telescope domes and other facilities. The group then checked into a hotel, ate dinner, and headed out to Anderson Mesa. Here, on a clear night, they rotated in groups to several stations – the 72-inch Perkins telescope dome, Navajo astronomy bingo, celestial viewing of Jupiter and other objects through a telescope, stargazing, and the 42-inch Hall Telescope and control room.

Complications in partnerships

Dr. Will Grundy’s teacher at Naschitti Elementary School did not respond to any of his attempts to contact her. So in January we gave up, and Will did not engage in a partnership this year.

Cultural Connections

Ms. Verna Tallsalt remains willing to come to Navajo classrooms and talk about traditional astronomical knowledge. This includes constellations and the lessons and history written in the stars. She tailors her talk according to the season and what she thinks the class needs. She took place in several star parties this year.

Teacher Workshop

Our tri-annual teacher workshop was held at Lowell Observatory from noon on November 17 through 6 pm on November 18. The teacher workshop is a major part of the teacher training. In addition, each teacher is invited to bring a colleague from their school. In that way, more teachers are reached than participate directly in the program and classroom visits. The teachers learn about activities that they can do in their classrooms and enhance their understanding of astronomy. Teachers were provided hotel accommodations, all meals, and reimbursement for other travel costs.

This year we had 19 teachers attend from 11 schools, all but 3 of the teachers were Native American. One of the teachers is a professor at Chief Dull Knife College in Lame Deer, Montana. He is Northern Cheyenne and plans to take the workshop back to his K-12 teachers who could not come themselves due to the lack of substitutes. The agenda included 7 classroom activities and the teachers were given all of the materials that they needed to carry out these activities in their classrooms. At the end of each activity Todd Gonzales discussed the applicable standards and how to turn the activity into a mini- Project Based Learning lesson.

We also had a discussion on the nature of science, an overview of astronomy, a star party and lessons on using planispheres and two telescopes that were given away in a drawing of names at the end of the workshop, an introduction to the collection of activities The Universe at Your Fingertips, a quick guide to using Stellarium and other on-line resources, Navajo cultural connections, and a talk on New Horizons and Pluto by Dr. Will Grundy.

Dr. Castagno prepared an evaluation report on the workshop. To quote from the Summary, “… very high level of success. … There was a strong theme of gratefulness for the workshop, as well as eagerness to take the learning and materials back to their schools. There was also a strong theme of wanting additional cultural responsiveness/cultural connections in the materials provided. And finally, it is important to note the important revision from the last teacher workshop of the explicit inclusion of content standards into the workshop. This was feedback that was provided after the last teacher workshop, and it appears that this was effectively included in the current workshop.

The knowledge shared between Lowell staff and reservation-based teachers in this workshop is both extensive and greatly needed. Teachers in most Navajo and Hopi schools have very few resources related to astronomy, and yet they are eager for these sorts of lessons and activities because they see how engaged their students often are when hands-on learning about their world is brought into the classroom.”

Assessment

Dr. Angelina Castagno, assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Foundations in the College of Education at Northern Arizona University, continues as our evaluator, assessing the effectiveness of our program. She prepares reports every other year and the last report was delivered in the summer of 2016. We have the teachers and students fill out the pre-questionnaires before our first visit and the post-questionnaires after our last visit or the field trip. We also have a questionnaire for the astronomers at the end of the school year. We also use a very short questionnaire for the students at the end of each activity to evaluate the effectiveness of that activity, as time permits.

Last year we also conducted a trial of following teachers after the year we work with them. The purpose is to see if they continue to use the activities that we introduced them to. Difficulties of following teachers include their mobility and the perhaps biased nature of who responds. Five teachers answered our queries last year, and those who responded were still using the materials that we had given them.

Dr. Castagno also evaluates our teacher workshop and produces a report on just the workshop. The evaluation is based on teacher questionnaires at the workshop.

The most recent evaluation and workshop evaluation reports are available on request.

Other activities

Curriculum development

On May 6 we hosted a one-day meeting of the teachers who had used the new 5th grade curriculum unit and their astronomer partners, our veteran teacher advisors, and our program evaluator in order to assess the unit. There were many suggestions on enhancements and extensions to the lesson plan, how to add the rest of the planets into the lesson, ways of formatting the unit that would be more useful to teachers, administrators, and astronomers, how to generally implement the unit and provide flexibility in scheduling, how to build in formative and summative assessments, how to give teachers support after we work with them, how to implement a technology component and allay teacher's lack of background for troubleshooting, and how to make the unit most useful if published on the internet.

We will make these changes for general use of the unit in our partnerships beginning in the 2017-18 school year, and we will start that school year with a one-day training workshop for teachers, astronomers, and principals. We also plan to enhance this unit with a technology component to be designed and tested in the 2017-18 school year involving robotic exploration of a planetary surface. The students will construct the planetary surface to resemble one of the planets in the solar system, and program a simple rover. This is based on an activity already in use in the Lowell Observatory summer camps, designed and led by Todd. There are also close parallels that can be drawn between the geography on Mars and that on the Navajo Nation.

We are currently preparing a proposal to NSF to fund three years of continued curriculum development that would start June 2018 if the proposal is funded.

Coordinating efforts

NAU submitted a pre-proposal to the National Science Foundation to fund the design phase of a collaborative effort to create a multi-faceted pipeline to carry Navajo and Hopi students’ interests in STEM from middle school through high school and into college. We were invited to submit a full proposal in May. This collaboration includes 6 different programs at several different institutions. In addition to our program at Lowell Observatory, it includes the NAU middle school summer camps called Stargazers, the NAU Nizhoni Academy high school summer camps, the NAU Space Grant program AIMER, the Changes in Altitudes Balloon Launch program and Embry-Riddle University, the GEMS Space Science Teacher Workshop and the NAU Center for Science Teaching and Learning, and two Navajo educators heavily involved in traditional astronomy education. These are all programs that have operated separately, but under this proposal, we would cooperate to produce a more coherent program that can sustain students’ interest in STEM as well as more effectively provide teacher training.

Funding

Our funding for this year’s program came from the Arizona Public Service Foundation (for curriculum development), Barringer Crater, Thomas R. Brown Foundation (for the teacher workshop), O. P. and W. E. Edwards Foundation, the John F. Long Foundation, the Lowell Observatory Director’s Opportunity Network, the Northern Arizona University Space Grant program, Soroptimist International, the Southwest Foundation, and 10 individuals. We are extremely grateful to these organizations and individuals for their generous support, which makes this program possible, and to their belief in the worthwhile nature of science education.