History of HOU

From Janesville Gazette article: "Observatory moves to new mission of drawing students into astronomy" by Chris Schultz, July 3, 2006
  "Daniel Pryke and brothers Orion and Rowan Danou, 5 and 3, watched with awe as Yerkes Observatory's 40-inch refracting telescope swung into operation.
  "Yerkes is now a key part of Hands-On Universe . . .
' This is not education in which people come in and lecture in a classroom,' [Yerkes Science Director Kyle Cudworth] said. 'We're helping students work with real data.' "

From Janesville Gazette article about HOU/Yerkes Observatory: "Yerkes' star still shines", by Chris Schultz, July 3, 2006.
  "In March, Yerkes confirmed the discovery of a supernova in a distant galaxy that's part of the Ursa Major constellation, also know as the Big Dipper...Now named Supernova 2006bg, the image was taken by Robert Holmes . . . Holmes sends his images to Yerkes for use in the Hands-On Universe program, an education program that gets raw astronomical data into the hands of high school science students.
 [Yerkes staff member Vivian Hoette] and others at Yerkes are working on blending research with hands-on-and eyes-on-education, so each new discovery may also create a new insight for students and teachers."

30 Jan 2005. New Focus for Yerkes
Excerpt: One outreach worker, Vivian Hoette, is involved with a group called Hands-On Universe.
    On a chilly moonlit night last year, Hoette hosted science teachers John Bruss from Deerfield High School in Illinois and Frank Mills from Palombi Middle School in Lake Villa, Ill.  They were using a smaller, 24-inch reflecting telescope at Yerkes to take pictures of galaxies and nebula and learn more about the science of astronomy.
    During the evening, Hoette's cell phone rang. Hughes Pack, a science teacher from Mount Herman boarding school in Northfield, Mass., asked her to photograph an asteroid while he conducted an evening astronomy class a thousand miles away.
    In less than half an hour, Hoette shot a multiple-picture sequence of the dim but fast-moving asteroid and uploaded the images to the Hands-On Universe Web site.
    Pack said his students love this type of lesson.  "This is real time.  Look what happens in 20 minutes.  The students really like to see things change and move."

March 2005. Small Telescope Parallax Group, which includes several HOU teacher leaders, looks for asteroids that come relatively close to Earth, whose parallax (and hence distance) can be determined by equipment available to amateur astronomers.  See results for asteroid 1998WT.
HOU collaborators in the Small Telescope Parallax Group: Vivian Hoette, Hands-On Universe;  Kaoru Kimura, Riken Institute of Japan;  Mike Ford, Elk Creek Observatory;  Lech Mankiewicz, Center for Theoretical Physics of Poland.

2004-2005. Congratulations to HOU teacher, Fred Page, for being named Secondary Teacher of the Year for Detroit Public Schools!

October 8, 2004. Science Magazine, Vol. 306, Issue 5694, 216-217.   Robotic Telescopes Give Kids a Cosmic Classroom.  HOU receives some nice publicity in this article on robotic telescopes.  Yerkes Observatory is mentioned, along with our rapidly evolving network of telescopes.  The article's main focus is on the Faulkes Telescopes, a set of two telescopes, one in Hawaii and one in Australia.  HOU teachers and collaborators have used the Faulkes on a limited basis already and hope to expand, somewhat, usage of these good instruments over the next few years.

March 11, 2004. Education Extra: Science classes looking up. By Walter Yost -- Sacramento Bee Bee Staff Writer. At the start of every astronomy class, [HOU TRA] Glenn Reagan's students scramble to computers to gaze at the latest breathtaking images from Mars: solar eclipses of the planet's two moons, the 100-mile-wide Gusev Crater, a dusty blue Martian sunset. "I've been teaching for 17 years, and nothing has been as interesting to students," said the Cordova High School instructor. ..."The photographs we're getting now are just beyond description," he said. Reagan expects Mars mania will carry over to upcoming space events, including June 4, when Venus crosses the sun, and July 1, when the Cassini spacecraft enters Saturn's orbit. "I think it's great that our generation will be the first to explore Mars," said Natasha Cabrera, a senior in Reagan's class. "If we find evidence of life on Mars, maybe we could find something about where we came from." ...Students like those in Reagan's class are also benefiting from impressive new technology, such as computerized astronomy. They're able to use image-processing software developed by "Hands-On Universe" at the Lawrence Hall of Science at UC Berkeley to request, receive and process their own astronomical images for projects like asteroid searches. In addition, they are communicating with other student astronomers via the Internet. Currently, Reagan's class is collaborating with peers at a North Carolina campus on a project measuring the mass of Saturn....

June 23-27, 2003 HOU Annual Conference 2003 was at Yerkes Observatory and Aurora College.

June 13-20, 2003. Wisconsin DPI Education Forum, Volume 6, Number 37. Students from WCBVI travel to Yerkes Observatory. Visit gives students and staff experience with equipment for SEE Project. Students and staff members from the Wisconsin Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired (WCBVI) joined members of the Williams Bay Lions Club for the presentation of a special graphics printer and tour of the Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay June 12. Summary article archived at http://www.dpi.state.wi.us/seachange/archive/0122.html

June 13, 2003. Janesville Gazette. Blind students use other senses to explore space. By Chris Schultz/Gazette Staff. WILLIAMS BAY- None of the students had been in an observatory before. It's a fair bet most have never seen starlight, either. Seven students from the Wisconsin Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Janesville visited the University of Chicago Yerkes Observatory on Thursday for a presentation, a tour and pizza-but also to experience a universe that most of us know nothing about.

May, 1999—HOU Receives $2.5 Million NSF Grant—The grant from the National Science Foundation, awarded to UC Berkeley's Lawrence Hall of Science - a national leader in creating science and math curricula for schools - will allow the HOU program to expand from 60,000 students today to an estimated 300,000 in five years. See UC Berkeley press release

1998—HOU teacher wins McAuliff award.

1998—HOU students discover a Kuiper Belt asteroid.

1997—HOU in a White House Press Release (1997)