Category Archives: Astronomy outreach

Astronomy outreach, Commentary, communicating astronomy

Communicating Astronomy

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Why I Do It

Talking and writing about astronomy is a fun gig. I’ve been doing it since the early 1980s, when I got to write a few things for The Denver Post. That was an exciting time. I started out there as an editorial assistant, but ended up writing things almost as soon as it occurred to me ask if I could. Several years later I decided it was time to head back to school and learn more astronomy. The fact that I ended up not only DOING astronomy but also getting a masters’ degree in science journalism is, in some measure, attributable to my love of both subjects.

If I could, I’d go back for that PhD in astrophysics (given enough time and money), but I have found a niche subject I like to write about and, thanks to a number of undergraduate and graduate classes in astronomy and planetary science, plus the chance to work first-hand with a couple of space missions, communicating astronomy is a full-time career. It has taken me from writing articles for newspapers to working as an editor and writer for Sky & Telescope; writing documentary scripts for planetarium shows to creating copy for an entire observatory full of exhibits (at Griffith Observatory). Lately, the rise of “new media” (podcasts, etc.) has taken me off in some new directions, creating podcasts (which you can see on my Video and ‘Casts page and also at Haystack Observatory.

I like to keep tabs on what’s new in astronomy communications–what they like to call “outreach” these days. Last fall I went to Athens, Greece for a meeting called “Communicating Astronomy to the Public.” It was an eclectic mix of people from around the world, all gathered to talk about how writers, producers, and astronomers can go about spreading the word about the sky and what we study in it.

Okay, so why communicate about astronomy? I’ve given that a lot of thought. In a time when there are so many things claiming our collective attention around the world (war, politics, religion, environmental concerns, and so on), it’s a fair question to ask. Sure, astronomy’s got a built-in “cool” factor that you can’t discount unless you’re a cost-cutting senator from a state that has no observatories. But, looking beyond that obvious fact, astronomy is also one of those sciences that gives you a toehold on a whole range of scientific interests. Want to know more about how stars work? Physics will get you started on the journey of discovery in stellar anatomy. Want to know about how planets form? You need some more physics. And geology–lots of geology. And chemistry, since planets (and stars) form out of mixtures of chemical elements in various states. What about life on other worlds? Put in a call to the astrobiologists (who combine biology, life sciences, and astrophysics for their work).

 

A distant solar system

A distant version of the solar system? Astronomy tells us perhaps so.

courtesy KASI,CBNU; ARCSEC, ;NSF.

How to study all this? Well, you need to know something about how to build the instruments of science (telescopes, radio dishes, orbiting satellites, geological sensing equipment, and so forth). Just about any science has a backwards-compatible link to astronomy. This is why we often refer to astronomy as a gateway science. And, beyond the pretty pictures that make science communicators’ lives easier, there are some really compelling stories in astronomy that blow people away (once they hear them).

That’s why I communicate astronomy–to tell really excellent stories about the cool stuff in the universe, and the people who discover and explain them. And, like I said, it’s a fun gig!

Astronomy outreach, Planetarium-related

The Star Talk Effect

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Back when I worked at the planetarium (before I went back to grad school), I used to dread the arrival of spring. Not the nice weather or the flowers. But, at the planetarium, spring meant increasing numbers of field trips. Now, the attendance numbers jumping up was good news. We wanted to see that. But, late in the spring, just when we got more attendance, our student helpers and lecturers were smack in the middle of studying for finals and/or getting ready for graduation. So they weren’t available to do all the star talks I’d trained them to do.

So, what that meant was the lecturing duties would be divvied up amongst a smaller pool of lecturers, or often enough, it was my sole duty to do them. Some days that’s all I did—give lectures to the school groups who came in for star tours and planetarium shows.

Don’t get me wrong—a startalk in the planetarium can be a thing of great beauty and a whole lot of fun to do for a lecturer blessed with a good sense of humor and receptive audiences. Two in a row is interesting. Three in a row is starting to take a toll. Doing six or seven in one day is a marathon. That’s six or seven HOURS of nonstop talking, answering questions, shepherding the students in and out, taking 10 minutes to gulp down lunch, and hopefully running out for a potty break during a pre-recorded show. So, I’d pace myself, and try to make each show as interesting as possible, but by the end of the day, I was definitely not on top of my game. Back when I taught in the classroom (briefly, early in my career) it was the same way. You spend the day in the classroom, with 20 or 30 kids, tending to every need, including the educational, and by the end of the day it was Miller time!

Still, the kids don’t know a planetarium lecturer is tired or talked out or badly need a bathroom break or a cup of coffee. They’re so taken by the whole environment of the planetarium and its cool shape and the equipment and the differentness of it all that they don’t notice the lecturer’s bedragglment late in the day. Which is a good thing. The magic of the dome somehow hides all that.

I was thinking about those days a couple of weeks ago when I was making arrangements to record a couple of narrators for a new set of shows that Mark and I have just released. They’re basically pre-recorded star talks for use in fulldome video planetarium systems. I was explaining the concept to one of the narrators, and I told her about my days in the planetarium and just how draining it could be, even though I was totally turned on about teaching under the dome. The memory of that theater experience was part of the impetus for these shows, in a way. Another was a request from a planetarium colleague who had NO staff to help give shows, and he needed a product to help him meet the demand for star shows. So, we created our stargazing show project to provide totally consistent shows that fulldomers can use, regardless of how well-staffed or prepared they are.

I wish I’d had them back in my own halcyon days of lecturing. I could have used them as stand-alones, or coupled them with Q&A sessions, which were some of my favorite times. A Q&A let me sort of “peek” inside the visitors’ heads to see what their understanding of astronomy was. They never let me down and a lot of times I got into some really cool conversations with attendees.

Which reminds me of a great star talk I heard at a star party in Ontario one time. It was really late in the evening and a group of us were sitting around one guy’s telescope talking about our first visits to planetariums. One of the guys gave a great imitation of a startalk presenter as if he was Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. The puns were awful, and we went away with our bellies aching from laughing so hard. But,for me, it was interesting to see that somebody got something out of the star talk, and remembered enough of it to do a credible imitation a few years later. That’s the beauty of any star talk—if it touches a person and makes them want to go outside and look up, then the effect is good, no matter how tired the lecturer might be.