West Virginia Connection Hidden Figures 2017 The Green Bank Observatory and The Space Race - Introduction Katelyn Flanagan Follow this and additional works at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/wvc Part of the History Commons, Instrumentation Commons, and the Other Astrophysics and Astronomy Commons Katelyn Flanagan December 8, 2017 ENG 405: Final Resources for Project Introduction: The Artifacts: For this portion of the materials, I included two “Piktographs” for students to use as a resource for their research for the final assignment. The first is one on the contributions specifically from West Virginia to the space race. It includes specific people from West Virginia and their contributions to this portion of our nation’s history. This way students are able to make home connections to West Virginia. The second Piktograph is one specifically on The Green Bank Observatory located in Green Bank, WV. It is home to the first radio telescope, as well as being the first national astronomy observatory. Although this isn’t explicitly related to the space race, it is an important aspect of our state and nation’s history and how they advanced in the topic of space through the research preformed at this facility on the radio telescopes. Connection to Hidden Figures: I decided to include these two pieces to use as curriculum for Hidden Figures because I think it gives students a way to make connections back to their home. Personally, I am always wondering about the ways in which my home plays a role in the bigger picture of the world. Often we overlook important people, events, and places in history because we haven’t explicitly learned about them in our history books. These two artifacts allow students to learn about the ways in which West Virginia has been involved in our nation’s race to the research in space. How to use these in conjunction with the Book: While none of these things are explicitly stated in the book, I think these two artifacts would be most useful in conjunction to learning about either West Virginia’s history, or learning about contributions from across the world to the space race. The teacher could use these two artifacts as a way to lead students into this unit, or begin to spark the interests of students into their own research. It only gives them a taste of the research they could perform on their own, but overall that was kind of its purpose. They should be used in conjunction with facts from the book or other outside resources as part of an overall research project. Flanagan 2 Works Cited/Image Credits/Additional Resources to Use Emberson, Richard M. “National Radio Astronomy Observatory.” Science, vol. 130, no. 3385, 1959, pp. 1307–1318. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1756849. Struve, Otto. “THE NATIONAL RADIO ASTRONOMY OBSERVATORY: THE OUTLOOK IN 1960.” Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, vol. 72, no. 426, 1960, pp. 177–187. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40676958. https://greenbankobservatory.org/ https://www.harpercollins.com/9780062662385/hidden-figures-young-readers-edition https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/katherine-johnson-at-nasa-langley-research-center http://www.humansinspace.org/rocket-boys/coalwood17/ http://www.rocketboysfestival.com/ https://www.biography.com/people/chuck-yeager-9538831 https://www.military.com/undertheradar/2016/03/14-reasons-chuck-yeager-may-be-the-greatest- military-pilot-of-all-time .