I would like to take this opportunity to invite all of you to the nearest city to my own small town: St. Louis.
This May 31 – June 4 the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the American Astronomical Society and the US International Year of Astronomy team are all converging on the Gateway City and you are invited!
Seriously – this special meeting is being made open to the public with many workshops and activities specifically geared at amateur astronomers and school teachers (and I’m part of a team giving one of them on Sunday).
From here:
Saturday, May 31 & Sunday, June 1: The ASP is sponsoring two days of hands-on astronomy workshops for teachers, amateur astronomers doing outreach, museum and planetarium educators, and everyone who wants to work with such audiences. (Scholarships are available through the generous support of the Spitzer Science Center.) Register NOW to attend ($25/day).
Monday, June 2 – Wednesday, June 4: Symposium on Preparing for the International Year of Astronomy, featuring speakers and hands-on sessions from all over the U.S. and the world. Hear about plans to organize world wide (and local) activities and events, a program to get an inexpensive telescope kit into the hands of millions of people, activities to raise international awareness of light pollution, astronomers’ plans to use new media to attract young people to help us celebrate IYA, etc. Register NOW to attend the symposium ($407 for members).
I’ll be there, as will Phil, Fraser, Chris, Michael, and many others (who will hopefully leave me messages in the comments below). And yes, we’ll do some sort of a meet up 🙂 More and that once I know the conference schedule.
See you there?
I’ll be there, though I think I’m going to do the NASA Center for Astronomy Education workshops for the weekend (since my university employer is sending me, rather than my museum employer). I might have to miss the last day and a half or so, in order to make it back for my daughter’s last day of preschool. See you there!
I’ll definitely be there, both for the weekend workshops and for the ASP/AAS Meeting. Mind you, I’ll probably be the jet-lagged one in the back row for a day or so as I arrive in St Louis from Australia on the Friday evening. I’m looking forward to lots of discussions about IYA as I’m coordinating IYA in schools nationally here in Australia next year among other things. I am also looking forward to meeting colleagues and making new friends. It will be great to meet people after reading their daily blogs.
Have you ever heard of Joppa? “I’ll see you in St. Louis” was a running gag in their first season.
Anyway I won’t be there. Gotta move into Vassar for the summer. Have fun 🙂
I look forward to your blogs/reports of the symposium. Roll on 2009 and some spectacularly clear and dark skies.