For my Capstone project, I will be developing a virtual Sun Camp in conjunction with Science Friday and the NASA Heliophysics Education Activation Team (NASA HEAT). The camp will feature both synchronous and asynchronous elements throughout the months of October and November centered around the science of the sun. The target age of students will be ages 5-9, but at-home activities will be scaffolded for older children in the family to enjoy. A version of the curriculum will also be provided to libraries, schools, and community groups for use in their spaces to broaden participation.
Materials will be provided to participants based on their need as determined by criteria of economic, social, political, and cultural life that may lead to social exclusion. Assessment will focus on capturing demographic information, a survey to the parents/educators on their perceptions of the student learning and information seeking on the topics presented, an analysis of chat logs and transcripts from live Q&A sessions, and the creation collection, and documentation of activity artifacts. The program will be free to participants.
The mission of Sun Camp is to develop open educational resources drawing on the latest heliophysics research. The goal is to facilitate interactions with families around the heliophysics theme in partnership with their communities to increase awareness and understanding of the scope of sun-related science in advance of the 2023 solar eclipse. The program will seek to recruit families from underserved communities and engage them in a variety of activities provided by subject matter experts, educational facilitators, and scientists working in the field.
The program will focus on activities centered around three driving essential questions:
What drives the constant change we observe on our sun?
What drives the changes in near-Earth space, the planetary space environments, the heliosphere, and the interstellar medium?
What are the impacts of this dynamic space system on humanity?
There will be five weeks of 30-45 minute online synchronous question and answer sessions delivered by subject matter experts (scientists) to families. Participants will be able to either ask questions directly or submit them in written format. The session will also be live-streamed and recorded in an effort to increase the audience and make the content evergreen (able to be used indefinitely).
There will also be weekly asynchronous activities that families can use to extend the learning each week. These will feature science experiments and engineering projects that can be done with common materials at home. A project guide will be created for families and community groups and distributed for free online. This guide will be combined with free supply kits that will be sent in advance of the program to registered families, libraries, schools, and other groups in underserved areas to facilitate their ability to host the activities on a schedule that makes sense for their audience.
For assessment, our focus will be on the participant's ability to demonstrate confidence and understanding of the topics covered in the program. Participants will be encouraged to create and share them each week with Science Friday or on social media. We will also analyze the chat logs and transcripts from the Q&A sessions to evaluate interest in specific themes and determine where gaps in knowledge persist.
My role will be to design the overall program, select the content to be included, design a framework for camp sessions, select and contract subject matter experts, recruit participants for Sun Camp (after identifying underserved areas to target and invite), plan, procure and ship kit materials, design the activities guide, work with partners to promote the program, design assessment tools, aid in the collection of data related to the program and effectively communicate the results to our grant funders.