Telescopes: Tools for Astronomical Discovery and the Search for Life on Other Planets

This past summer, the Penn State Astrobiology Research team offered a 5-day teacher professional development workshop for 20 in-service educators currently teaching grades 6-12. The educators received two Penn State graduate credits and more than 15 different NASA educational materials and resources. They also received and built Galileoscopes to utlilize in their classroom. The workshop focused on topics ranging from optics to spectrometry to current telescopes and their search for extra solar planets. Astrobiology basics were discussed and activities were facilitated from the Life on Earth and Elsewhere Educator Resource Guide. The workshop is co-funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) through the Penn State Astrobiology Research Center (PSARC) and the NASA Pennsylvania Space Grant Consortium. For more information: http://teachscience.psu.edu