It is currently the International Year of Astronomy and Pacific Science Center is embarking on a project with our high school interns this summer to create posters of current astronomers for display at Pacific Science Center and distribution to science teachers this fall. The detailed project description is below.

We have the interns, the cameras, the plan and now all we need is some astronomers! This is where I need your help.

Do you know any scientists who work in astronomy-related fields? Any astronomers? Astrophysicists? Aerospace engineers? Grad students in planetary geology? All of these “count” as scientists for this project – any field that’s even remotely related to astronomy is great for us and any “level” of scientist, from grad student, to post-doc, to professor, to a person who applies these sciences in industry. We would prefer if these people are in the greater Seattle area, or are at least visiting Seattle sometime this summer. We are especially looking for minorities (of all kinds) in the field of astronomy.

We’re hoping to put together about 25 posters that include a photograph taken by the interns and some short biographical information about each scientist: current projects, hobbies, etc. We would love to meet more than 25 scientists so we have lots of choices for the posters.

The photography sessions and interviews will take place during the summer (end of June through early August 2009), and should only take about an hour.

If you know of anyone who would be willing to participate or help in other ways, please send me their contact information or forward this message on to them.

Project Description
Modern Scientists: Everyone Knows What a Scientist Looks Like

Children are inspired to follow career paths when they can imagine themselves there. Seeing pictures of adult individuals who look like them working in a given career can provide this spark to children’s imaginations. As a teaher it is difficult to decorate a classroom with posters of scientists who look like today’s students. Most (though not all) of the current available posters of scientists are of Einstein, and scientists who look like Einstein. This is not representative of the current face of science.

To help change this, Pacific Science Center will host a photography exhibit: photographs of real, current scientists from all races, genders, beliefs, and walks of life. Photos will be taken and short biographies written by interns from Pacific Science Center’s youth development program.
We plan to make the photographs from this exhibit available to teachers for use in their classrooms, in addition to being displayed at Pacific Science Center during the International Year of Astronomy.

The objectives of this project are to fill a need for representative photographs of scientists in the world community and to meet two of the goals of International Year of Astronomy: to provide a modern image of science and scientists, and to improve the gender-balanced representation of scientists at all levels and promote greater involvement by underrepresented minorities in scientific and engineering careers.

Thank you,

~ A l i c e !
alicesastroinfo (a) gmail.com

Life’s boring without Discovery!

P.S. Don’t miss this week’s Carnival – over at cheapastro – and I’m in it for the Mars April Fools post!

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