30 July 2009

Oklahoma Alternative Education Conference

Yesterday I drove to Stillwater one last time to meet with Dr. Khanov and try to get my data analysis finished. I didn't quite get it done since we are having a little trouble with finding a data file that fits our parameters. I only meniton that because it means my research done! I'll have to finish some writing and work on a little bit more data, but for the most part, I'm done. It was a great 5 weeks and I am glad I took the opportunity. Very glad.

Today is the Oklahoma Alternative Education Conference. Its a conference for teachers who work with students in alternative education programs, such as the Putnam City STRIVE program (credit recovery) or the Putnam City Academy. I was asked to present (still haven't figured out why) by the state department of education Alternative Ed. director. I decided to talk about stellarium and Exploring your Universe. Stellarium is an open-source virtual planetarium developed by some french folks who are interested in Astronomy. Exploring your Universe is a companion lab manual, designed to go along with that software. It takes students through the process of first learning to use the software, then some exercises which teach them about constellations, coordinate systems, and even has them recreate Galileo's observations of Jupiter's 4 largest moons way back in the 1600's. Its a really useful tool which I will be employing in my Astronomy/Meteorology class next year.

I'm a little nervous, but very excited to share a resource I have with some very special teachers who work with some very special students.

As always, thanks for reading

jb

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