An Astronomy Program for Teachers at the University of Texas at Austin

The University of Texas is pleased to announce the EXES Teachers' Program. EXES is a spectrograph currently being built at UT-Austin for SOFIA - the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy. SOFIA is a 2.5 meter infrared telescope which will be housed in a 747-SP airplane; the airplane is currently being modified to become a flying observatory. SOFIA will eventually be based in northern California at Ames Research Center.

If you are a teacher of grades 6-12 or an education specialist and are within 100-miles of Austin, you are invited to apply for this FREE program. Application forms are still being accepted. The program will consist of six one-day meetings per calendar year. Participants will be eligible to apply to accompany the instrument during field-tests on the airplane in 2004.

The EXES program will allow you to learn both the background science and the technology involved in building a state-of-the-art instrument. You will experience the construction and testing of the instrument in several phases. In addition, there will be sessions on astronomical topics such as the observing techniques, optics, and spectroscopy.

Classroom activities will be correlated to the National Science Education Standards and the TEKS. Each participating teacher within one hundred miles of UT-Austin will have an EXES team member visit their school once during the project. Funding for this project is limited to $0.28 per mile up to a maximum of 200 miles round trip per teacher for each session. (Carpooling is encouraged.) Instructional materials will be provided.

Sessions are typically one Saturday a month during the school year from 9:30 AM to 3:00 PM.

Activities from previous sessions are listed.

Application forms are available on this site or from:

Dr. Keely Finkelstein
Astronomy Department
University of Texas at Austin
2515 Speedway, Stop C1400
Austin, TX 78712-1205
Fax 512-471-6016
E-mail: keelyf@astro.as.utexas.edu