Want to be a radio astronomer?

The Lewis Center for Educational Research (LCER) has announced a pretty cool opportunity for elementary school teachers to get their classes involved in radio astronomy. Cribbed from their announcement: "The Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope Program (GAVRT) is an education partnership involving NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and LCER. It is a K-12 project using radio astronomy to provide an opportunity for students to experience real science and to learn that science is an ongoing process and actual discovery is possible. Using their classroom computer, 32,000 students have taken control of a 34-meter, 500-ton, 9-story-high radio telescope located at NASA's Deep Space Network at Goldstone, CA. They learn how to gather data, understand what the data mean and how to follow through with analysis. We are excited to include Radio JOVE with our training in 2010. Radio JOVE is a NASA education program: Solar and planetary radio astronomy for schools. It is a hands-on educational activity that brings the radio sounds of the sun, Jupiter, the Milky Way galaxy and terrestrial radio noise to students, teachers and the
general public. We target grade levels 6 - 14 to build a simple radio telescope kit, speak with professional radio astronomers, make scientific observations, and interact with radio observatories in real-time. For further information, see http://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov
Teachers need to attend a 5-day class in order to take this program back to their
students, and can apply online at this time at http://www.lewiscenter.org/gavrt/opportunities.php. We are conducting a 5-day teacher training class at the Lewis Center on March 8 - 12, July 19 - 23, and October 25 - 29, 2010, at our facility in Apple Valley, CA. We strongly recommend at least two teachers attend the training from your school or area. While this is not a requirement, it will definitely serve to help in program support once back in the classroom. The cost of the 5-day class is $745. For questions, e-mail gavrt-info@lcer.org or call (760) 946-5414 X234.
More information about GAVRT can be found at http://www.lewiscenter.org/gavrt/ ."