United States of America - IYA2009 Update

8 December 2009

Cultural Astronomy & Storytelling - Continuing IYA Programs

- Hubble's Diverse Universe Film: Public screenings and DVD distribution beginning in 2010.

- The Cultural Astronomy Summer School will continue at the Summer AAS meetings.

- The UNESCO Astronomy & World Heritage Initiative will continue into the foreseeable future. The goal is to include cultural and scientific astronomy properties onto the World Heritage Site List (http://whc.unesco.org/en/astronomy)

- The Skies Alive! Film Competition is working on a professional website but the announcement is at ursa.as.arizona.edu/~iya2009cast/SkiesAlive.htm The new submission date is Jun 15.

Puerto Rico - Continuing IYA Programs

- continue to offer the 14 images from FETTU with the theme of stellar evolution for schools: "Vida de las Estrellas" - prepare and publish the talks of the discussion panel on Apollo 11 in a book format - prepare and publish an astronomy theme insert in the University of Puerto Rico newspaper - continue to offer the teacher workshop "Kepler's Law's" - continue to distribute the lithograph with FETTU image and math problem called Galileo's Challenge (Reto de Galileo)

365 Days of Astronomy Podcast - Continuing IYA Programs

The award-winning 365 Days of Astronomy podcast is proud to announce that the project will continue for another 365 days and is now accepting sign-ups for participants for 2010. This is a legacy project of IYA and is being managed by Astrosphere New Media Association.

BLAST! educational DVD now for sale BLAST!, a spectacular and suspenseful story of space exploration and IYA2009 Special project, is now available on DVD in a double disc set, specially designed for the educational and institutional markets. Five-time Emmy winner Paul Devlin follows his brother Mark Devlin, PhD to five continents, from the Arctic to the Antarctic to launch a revolutionary new telescope on a NASA high altitude balloon to reveal a hidden Universe. From catastrophic failure to transcendent triumph, their adventure reveals the real life of scientists. To buy the DVD, please visit: http://www.blastthemovie.com/buy.html

News from Donald Lubowich of Hofstra University

- The NYC Columbus Day Parade was successful. The float had IYA banners and logos on two sides and the back and was seen by ~750,000 people along the parade and millions on TV. We were only on camera for about 60 seconds. There was someone dressed up as Galileo with a replica telescope. I held up a Galileoscope, there was someone dressed up as an astronaut who shook hands with Galileo and someone dressed up as Galileo's daughter. The President of the Galileo lodge of the Sons of Italy of American was also on the float. We are in the last minute of this you tube (6:56 - 7:07) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr9S_xctVcA

- The final Music and Astronomy Under the Stars event for 2009 was very successful.

- Halloween Stars -Spooky Walk at Clark Botanical Garden approximately 8500 kids (many in costume) and their parents came over four days (Oct. 29 - Nov. 1) to walk through a dark garden with vampires, ghosts, ghouls coming out from behind the bushes. Everyone saw the IYA banner, my Music and Astronomy Under the Stars banner, and the Visions of the Universe posters. There were long lines of people waiting to look through the telescopes on two nights (Oct. 29 and 30) attended by 5000 people. About 1000 people came to look at Jupiter or the Moon on Oct. 29 while 500 people came to look through a telescope to see a distant object or see the astronomy video on the cloudy night of Oct. 30.

400 Years of the Telescope: educational video clips Enjoy the insightful and educational video clips drawn from over 70 hours of interviews with the world's leading figures in astronomy, shot during the filming of 400 Years of the Telescope. http://www.400years.org/en/video/video.php

Welcome Brian Kruse, the new Lead Formal Educator at the ASP Brian has been a middle school teacher in both Oregon and California and was a coordinator for NASA's Explorer Schools program for several years. He will be serving as both the Bay Area ASTRO coordinator and the National Network coordinator. bkruse@astrosociety.org

U.S. winners of Cassini Scientist for a Day announced The U.S. winners of the Cassini Scientist for a Day essay contest are now online. This international essay contest is an IYA2009 Special project. Students chose one of three images the Cassini spacecraft would take on a given date and time set aside for education, and they each wrote a 500-word essay explaining why their choice would yield the best science results. Winners and their classes are invited to participate in teleconferences with Cassini scientists. http://www.astronomy2009.org/news/updates/632/

NASA Images: an invaluable resource for sharing incredible pictures NASA Images is a searchable database, useful for science communicators, educators, and general astronomy fans. Created under a Space Act Agreement between NASA and Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library, it offers unprecedented access to the largest collection of NASA media from a single, searchable site. NASA Images is constantly growing with the addition of current media from NASA, as well as newly digitized media from the archives of the NASA Centers. http://www.astronomy2009.org/news/updates/624/

Dark Skies book made into a Spanish video for IYA2009 Copies of Bob Crelin's book "There Once was a Sky Full of Stars" were given to Chilean teachers and students as part of a kit from the Dark Skies Awareness Cornerstone project. Taking the initiative, these recipients then translated it into Spanish, and created a video. This has been put online, and is available for all to see and enjoy. See the video in Spanish (with English subtitles) here: http://concurso.educarchile.cl/index.php/videoteca?task=videodirectlink&id=189

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