AUI News Release
AUI Sponsors Very Successful Educational Program at AAS 221st Meeting
On January 8th, 2013, AUI sponsored an Astronomy Student Event at the Long Beach AAS Meeting. AUI’s donation helped transport 270 local middle-school and high-school students to the Long Beach Convention Center. Various exhibitors prepared a selection of hands-on educational activities for the students, including AUI’s National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
Sue Ann Heatherly, NRAO Public Education Officer, prepared a hands-on activity for the students called RFI Detective. After sharing the new JVLA image of Hercules A with the students and explaining how radio telescopes work, they were sent on a quest to find man-made sources of radio waves in the exhibit hall. The question posed to the students was, “Would this be a good place to build a radio telescope”. Students used a simple AM radio as a "portable interference detector". They scattered out to different exhibits and then returned to report back. They certainly got the message that electronic devices like computers create very strong radio signals! They were surprised to learn that Sue Ann lived in a place where cell-phones don't work!
You can download a copy of the full RFI Activity and perform the experiment on your own!
When the students left the hall after an action-packed 2 ½ hours they were each given an AUI backpack which was filled with handouts from all the AAS exhibitors. Their only complaint was that they hadn’t had enough time to visit all the interesting exhibits, confirming that this had been a very successful Educational Program!
