PDP Teams and Teaching Sites

Teaching site: ASTRAL workshops for community college students at Lick Observatory

UC Observatories has expanded Lick Observatory’s education programs, including building the new ASTRAL consortium of San Francisco Bay Area community colleges and Cal State campuses that have access to the observatory. Consortium activities include designing new educational activities for college courses and co-curricular programs; these activities involve undergraduates in working with Lick Observatory telescopes, technology, and data.

• Team 01 will refine and teach an activity on transiting exoplanets for a workshop to be held at Lick Observatory for community college students on June 28-July 2, 2026

• Team 02 will refine and teach an activity on transiting exoplanets for a workshop to be held at Lick Observatory for community college students on July 12-16, 2026

Background/experience: We are recruiting PDP participants primarily from UC campuses with astronomy and similar backgrounds to join these teams.

Contact Anne Metevier (metevier@ucsc.edu) if you have questions about these teaching teams.

Teaching site: Astronomy / physics lab courses at Bay Area colleges

UC Observatories has expanded Lick Observatory’s education programs, including building the new ASTRAL consortium of San Francisco Bay Area community colleges and Cal State campuses that have access to the observatory. Consortium activities include designing new educational activities for college courses and co-curricular programs; these activities involve undergraduates in working with Lick Observatory telescopes, technology, and data.

• Team 03 will refine and teach an activity on Kepler's Laws and predicting solar system objects' orbits from multiple observations for an astronomy lab course at Hartnell College in Salinas, CA, in late April or early May, 2026

• Team 04 will design and teach an activity on spectroscopy for a calculus-based physics lab course at College of San Mateo in San Mateo CA, in late April or early May, 2026

• Team 05 will refine and teach an activity on apparent motion of the night sky for an astronomy lab course at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park in early May, 2026

Background/experience: We are recruiting PDP participants primarily from UC campuses with astronomy and similar backgrounds to join these teams.

Contact Anne Metevier (metevier@ucsc.edu) if you have questions about these teaching teams.

Teaching site: Bay Area astronomy outreach

Lick Observatory is expanding its outreach efforts throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, including participating in more community events and evolving our summer evenings at the observatory.

• Team 06 will will design and implement an interactive astronomy outreach demonstration to be used by all ages in an informal learning setting in the Bay Area. Implementation of the activity will likely take place at Lick Observatory in June 2026

Background/experience: We are recruiting PDP participants primarily from UC campuses with astronomy and similar backgrounds to join this team.

Contact Anne Metevier (metevier@ucsc.edu) or Lauren Corlies (lcorlies@ucsc.edu) if you have questions about this teaching team.

Teaching site: AstroTech instrumentation summer school

AstroTech is a one-week astronomical instrumentation summer school held at UC Berkeley for upper-level undergraduates and early graduate students who are interested in careers in astronomical instrumentation. Students gain hands-on experience in optics and optical systems, and build community as they work in small teams to design, build, and test an optical instrument (spectrograph). 

• Team 07 will refine and teach an existing optics activity that will help to prepare students for their spectrograph-building activity during the summer school  at UC Berkeley on June 22-26, 2026

Background/experience: We are recruiting PDP participants from across the US who have backgrounds in astronomy, physics, and optical engineering to join these teams. 

Contact Candice Brown Pacheco (candiceb@ucsc.edu) if you have questions about the AstroTech teaching team.

Teaching site: Kanu a kupu summer bridge at UH Hilo

Kanu a Kupu is a two-day summer bridge program designed for incoming students in the College of Natural and Health Sciences at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo. Students gain hands-on experience in a STEM research-style activity. Team members have the option of serving on an informal panel about STEM pathways.

• Team 08 will refine and teach an activity on a STEM research topic (likely related to astronomy or climate change) to be determined in collaboration with UH Hilo faculty. This activity will be taught at UH Hilo in mid-late August, 2026.

Background/experience: We are recruiting PDP participants from astronomy or climate-related disciplines, with content preferably related to the islands and communities of Hawaii.

Contact Candice Brown Pacheco (candiceb@ucsc.edu) if you have questions about this teaching team.

Teaching site: UT Austin Astronomy summer research preparation

The University of Texas at Austin supports a group of summer undergraduate researchers, who benefit from preparation and cohort-building at the beginning of the summer. 

• Team 09 will will design and teach a 1-day astronomy lab activity as an orientation for summer undergraduate research students at UT Austin in early summer 2026

Background/experience: We are recruiting PDP participants primarily from Texas-based campuses with astronomy and similar backgrounds to join this team.

Contact Anne Metevier (metevier@ucsc.edu) if you have questions about this teaching team.

Teaching Site: University of Colorado, Boulder (CU Boulder)

• Team 10 will design and teach an astronomy lab activity for incoming undergraduate students or for summer research students at CU Boulder in early summer 2026

Relevant background/experience: We are recruiting PDP participants primarily from Colorado-based campuses with astronomy and similar backgrounds to join this team.

Contact Candice Brown Pacheco (candiceb@ucsc.edu) or Anne Metevier (metevier@ucsc.edu)  if you have questions about these teaching teams. 

Teaching site: NSSC-LLNL Nuclear Security and Nonproliferation Summer School

• Team 11 will design and teach an activity on an aspect of nuclear risk reduction for upper-division undergraduate and graduate students who will participate in the summer school at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, CA. The summer school will take place on June 9-12, 2026.

Relevant background/experience: We are recruiting PDP participants from across the US who have backgrounds in physics/nuclear physics. US citizenship is required to participate on this team.

Contact Anne Metevier (metevier@ucsc.edu) if you have questions about this teaching team.