Cleveland State University awarded 2024 Marsh W. White Outreach Award

Zone and Chapter: Cleveland State University

Project

Project Name: Outreach Totality: Eclipse based Outreach-Teaching Experience

Project Leaders: Patrick Herron

Chapter Advisors: Kiril A Streletzky

Project Description: The 2024 total solar eclipse in Cleveland has provided CSU’s SPS the opportunity to partner with Hathaway Brown, a local K-12 all-girls school, for a unique outreach-teaching experience. CSU’s SPS,whichhas a multi-year record of physics outreach in local schools (a.k.a “Physics Fridays”) will work with former CSU’s SPS outreach coordinator, Ms. Janna Mino, currently the Director of Fellowships in Science Research and Engineering at Hathaway Brown (HB), to train a team of HB’s 9-12 grade students how to perform outreach themselves and facilitate their outreach to younger HB students and general public. In phase 1,called “First Sighting”,weproposea day trip to HB in January to introduce eclipse outreach activities to HB students and teach them how to perform outreach for themselves. The HB outreach team will then use their new knowledge to help CSU’s SPS perform eclipse demos to the younger students (K-8) at HB on the same day. This effort should benefit the girls of all ages at HB in particular the HB outreach team as the best way to learn and understand a subject is to teach it to others. In phase 2,called “Outreach Totality”, HB outreach team together with the CSU’s SPS will reach out to Cleveland inner city kids via several 2024 eclipse related outreach sessions through after-school care programs at 5 locations of the Cleveland Public Library. This project will not only educate and prepare Cleveland students on the upcoming eclipse but will also provide the girls at Hathaway Brown the skills to perform their own outreach so we can further spread the fun of science to schools in northeast Ohio.

Project Media: