http://www.gavrt.lewiscenter.org
By Bonnie J. Walters
Ventura County Astronomical Society
In late January, I was fortunate to visit the Goldstone Deep Space Communication Complex. Goldstone is located 45 miles north of Barstow, California on Ft. Irwin. Your inexhaustible editor described that very same tour in the February issue of this newsletter. At the time I had mentioned to our tour guide, Marie Massey, I was in training to become a technical operator for the Telescopes in Education (TIE) project at Mt. Wilson. She said the radio telescope equivalent to the TIE project was the Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope project, better known as GAVRT. As we stood at the base of the massive DSS-12 antenna, Marie gave us a brief history of GAVRT. She thought I should ‘scope it’ out and here are the results:
:The Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope project’s radio telescope is called Deep Space Station 12 (DSS-12). It was built in late 1961 and was originally 26 meters in diameter. It is located at the ECHO site near the administration complex. This site is named for its initial operation in support of Project Echo, an experiment that transmitted voice communications coast to coast by bouncing the signals off the surface of passive balloon-type satellites. The present Echo antenna was extended to 34 meters in 1979. It is about 35 meters high and weighs approximately 400 tons (514,667 kilograms). For more than thirty years, DSS-12 has been used to track and communicate with robotic space probes. It covered the Mariner missions, Pioneer, Voyagers 1 and 2, and other spacecraft exploring the solar system. In 1994, NASA decommissioned DSS-12 from its operational network. In 1996, a coalition of professional scientists, educators, engineers, and several community volunteers began working on a use for the antenna and the GAVRT project was born. Presently, DSS-12 is solely used for the GAVRT project.
The GAVRT project is a partnership involving NASA, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the Lewis Center for Educational Research (LCER), and the Apple Valley Unified School District. This partnership has converted the 34-meter telescope into an interactive research and teaching instrument available to K-12 classrooms throughout the United States via the Internet. The LCER, the Deep Space Network Science Office, and the Telecommunications/Mission Operations Directorate at JPL jointly manage the GAVRT Project.
The purpose of GAVRT is to provide students and educators with curriculum vehicles that promote science literacy, support a better understanding of the scientific community, and provides the opportunity to collect real-time data with sophisticated science equipment. Students perform actual scientific observations in radio astronomy. They analyze real-time data and learn that science is an ongoing process. Currently, the curriculum covers upper elementary through high school (K-12). There are lessons for the younger grades on the electromagnetic spectrum. It meets National Science Education Standards and is adapted to meet individual State Education Standards. The curriculum guides are broad-based, multi-disciplined and can be adapted for children of all backgrounds and educational levels. They can be implemented as is or adapted to fit any lesson plan. For instance, some grades fulfill their math, science, art, reading, and writing standards with this program.
The two established curriculum projects are Jupiter Quest and Project EarthStar. Jupiter Quest is a student-planned hypothetical mission to the Jovian System. The GAVRT telescope is used to measure the temperature of Jupiter’s atmosphere and study variations in the radio emission from Jupiter’s intense radiation belts. In Project EarthStar, students study temperature profiles of the sun’s surface correlated with optical observations of various solar phenomena. There is room for flexibility when opportunity arises. For instance, the Cassini-Jupiter Microwave Observing Campaign (Cassini-JMOC) asked the GAVRT teachers and students to be an active participant when the Cassini-Huygens Spacecraft made its closest approach to Jupiter on December 30, 2000. As participants, the GAVRT students took measurements of Jupiter and calibration radio sources used by the NASA Cassini mission. Following the completion of the Jupiter flyby, their data was compiled into a report and presented to the Cassini Mission Team in a formal ceremony at JPL on May 4, 2001. As reported to the 52nd International Astronautical Congress 1-5 Oct 2001/Toulouse, France by M.J. Klein, Jet Propulsion Laboratory/Caltech…using the VLA, the GAVRT antenna and NASA’s Deep Space Network, the data collected were merged with the ongoing NASA/JPL Jupiter Patrol to improve the sensitivity and time resolution of the resulting data. These observations were made simultaneously with the spacecraft observations to transfer the accuracy of ground-based radio astronomy flux calibration to the Cassini radar receiver using Jupiter as a common reference source. [thus improving the calibration] The Uranus Campaign Project is beginning in the summer of 2002. It will be a collaboration of observations. The students’ data will help determine the nature of seasonal change in Uranus’ deep atmosphere. The Uranus study will continue for the next few years.
These special projects are a wonderful opportunity for students to participate with NASA/JPL. All projects follow the same principles in that each is based on real science and legitimate inquiry, is curriculum driven, is accessible to all students, aligns with the science standards and offers students the opportunity to possess and share real scientific data. Two other curriculum projects in development are Galactic Mapping (locating and mapping radio sources in the Milky Way) and StarBirth (studying the origins of star formation, chemistry in space, and radio spectroscopy).
Through technology, GAVRT provides students with an incredible learning opportunity outside the classroom. Students call in and hook up via the Internet to Operations Control Center at LCER in Apple Valley, California. They are then given remote control of the massive DSS-12 antenna. Students learn how to work cooperatively in teams. Computers are used to record the faint radio waves collected by the telescope. Students have a tremendous chance to fine-tune their computer and problem solving skills. They learn how to gather real-time data, how to analyze it with a computer software program and determine what that data means. The data can then be manipulated to provide various delivery styles (graphs, charts, mapping graphs etc.). The data is logged first at LCER where it goes through the preliminary student analysis and is stored at the database there. These results are forwarded to the JPL for final analysis and inclusion in their database. It is then made available to scientists, astronomers, teachers and students around the world. The students are acutely aware there is always the chance of making a real scientific discovery.
As you well, might guess, teacher training is extensive. 98 teachers at 58 schools in 17 states have gone through training. Over 10,000 (K-12) students have gone through the GAVRT program. Come July 2002, GAVRT will be an international program with several teachers from other countries completing their training. Applications are being taken now for the 2002-2003 school year. Teacher training takes place 4 times a year. Three sessions occur at LCER and the other at Auburn University in Alabama, their Southeastern Regional Training Site. Teachers must be committed to the program, have an interest in math and science, be computer and Internet savvy, and have school/district support. Teacher and school requirements can be found at GAVRT’s web site.
The basic training package consists of 5 full days of teacher training, all necessary operation and curriculum materials, software, a minimum of six hours scheduled classroom time on-line with the GAVRT telescope, and a field trip to NASA’s Deep Space Network at Goldstone, CA. There are four payment options available for the teacher training and these are detailed at the web site. Teachers receive continual on-line support throughout the school year.
GAVRT is an impressive project and a wonderful opportunity to excite our next generation of scientists, engineers and astronomers.
All questions can be referred to Kim Bunnell, Executive Assistant, Lewis Center for Educational Research,kim@avstc.org.