The project proposes to disseminate NASA mission-related heliophysics content to underserved urban and rural upper elementary and middle school educators to make participants and their students better…

The project proposes to disseminate NASA mission-related heliophysics content to underserved urban and rural upper elementary and middle school educators to make participants and their students better informed of NASA missions studying the sun, the sun's features and variability, the sun's effects on earth, and how earth can better prepare for solar storms that affect earthly systems. We propose annual educator workshops, one per year over three years at each of six locations, reaching up to 900 middle and upper elementary school teachers. Workshops will be held at NASA wallops visitor center (wallops island, virginia), NASA's IV & v educator resource center (fairmont, west virginia), in three rural maryland counties (washington, cecil and kent), all regions with underserved populations, and at the maryland science center in baltimore, serving primarily underserved baltimore city educators. Each partner has expressed needs for educator professional development and enthusiastically supports this proposal. The project will also develop six sets of traveling exhibits for use at the workshops and for extended stays at local libraries in the same maryland counties and at the NASA visitor centers. These institutions have a history of hosting traveling exhibits and are eager to take part. Maryland science center will develop programs in a variety of MSC venues based on NASA solar missions and solar science. Sun- centered programs already exist at three MSC locations: science on a sphere, a six-foot suspended globe showing images of the sun in a number of wavelengths from SDO, stereo and soho; the crosby ramsey memorial observatory, with weekly solar observations in both white light and hydrogen alpha for school and public audiences; and spacelink, where the latest images from NASA solar missions appear. This project proposes to add a full-dome digital program on the topic of the sun to the davis planetarium. Solar storms is a 30-minute program featuring NASA images and content. These unique sites provide opportunities for MSC visitors to approach the subject matter in diverse ways using various presentation techniques, thereby reinforcing the content. The project plans front-end and formative evaluation efforts to gauge the public's knowledge and misconceptions of the topic and a follow-up study with teachers to track their comprehension and use of the content in their classrooms. The locales chosen for the educator workshops and library exhibits are historically underserved. Educators from these districts will receive instruction in NASA heliophysics content and ready-for-the-classroom activities. Library patrons will be exposed to the variety of NASA sun-centered missions. Demographic data from each region show significant minority populations (up to 46%) and people living below poverty level (up to 20%). In addition, programs will be offered at the maryland science center, where annual attendance averages 425,000. An expected 50,000 will view the full-dome digital davis planetarium program, MSC's rooftop observatory provides visitors with safe views of the sun, and science on a sphere displays three-dimensional views of SDO/stereo/soho data sets. The proposed programs align with NASA science and education goals, including NASA's science mission directorate's heliophysics division goals of "understanding the sun, heliosphere, and planetary environments as a single connected system" along with its three primary objectives. The project will also align with NASA's education strategic framework's goals in informal education to build strategic partnerships and linkages with stem formal and informal education providers, provide informal education resources that use NASA's unique content, and provide informal education that improves competency about NASA content or stem career development among those who offer local, regional or national NASA-themed educational activities or exhibits.