Carl Pennypacker: Another Good Year for GHOU and More Work and Successes Ahead

GHOU: Steady Progress and

and With Some Effort, Good

futures!

Carl Pennypacker

President, GHOU Permanent Council

GHOU Conference, August 4 , 2015

Thanks to:

1) Ms. Bonnie Thurber

Northwestern University and

Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

2) Ms. Mary Anne Kadooka

Hawaii

3) Roy Gal, Institute for Astronomy

4) Institute for Astronomy Directorate,

Staff and colleauges

Five Stories: • Billy and Chris in Atherton, Queensland Australia want to study Black Holes. Carl

finds them Cyg X-1 papers, and also gets them time on LCOGT network, with kind

help of Edward Gomez. They will probably get some of the better charaterizations

of Cyg X-1 to date.

• Matthew Casey’s students in San Francisco learning GHOU, and using

Suzanne et Michel Fayes Black Holes units!

• We have many eager workshop presenters at this conference – schedulers had to

give less time to workshops than presenters wanted

• Some of us just came from a “Revive US HOU Meeting.” Revival now in process!!

• At dinner last night, I asked Sergio if we could get ALMA images and units. He said

“Of course – that is the plan….”

• Rosa Doran trained 300 new teachers and had micro-workshops with 500 teachers

My Hopes for the Structure of Meeting:

1) Learning how we can communicate and

be a lot more cohesive as a

collaboration!

2) How to move together more effectively

and with greater power into the Future!

What Binds Us Together?

• Faith in Astronomy as a Transformative Education Tool!

• Our personal experience and growing evidence

That kids learn science ,math, and technology really well

With GHOU!

• Faith that Teachers want and need us

• Effectiveness and amazing things many of us have done

• Our own wonder and amazement at our system, how we positively

affect students and teachers, and the great road behind and ahead.

Reflections on Some Heritage

• Students and Teachers need GHOU

Because just about every time we test or evaluate, we find:

- Students are more excited about science and math

compared to normal science courses

- Students are learning more (generally)

• Most Administrators, scientists and Government people

don’t understand this YET, but we must gently and slowly

covert them, and more will appreciate GHOU-- resistance is

futile!

• But we need to make an overwhelming case, and still do

things without money.

Look at What We Can Do!

HOU US Teacher Glenn Reagan, Silicon II filter images

(C-14 GHOU Telescope in Perth, Australia)

Some Startling Successes: • Started in United States, and Spread to

Sweden, Japan, France, Germany, and other

Early-adopter nations. With Rosa, got GTTP Landslide:

• We have run out of nations, but still need to understand

how to make GHOU stronger now in all of our nations.

• Ideas: Build base of evidence, then market GHOU!!

We have positively impacted

millions of children and 10’s of

thousands of teachers • And:

~ 10,000- 20,000 teachers around the world

trained and using GHOU materials -> > 500,000

students a year using GHOU. (French connection

still underway – will be huge!!….)

- Developed a world leading use of technology,

data bases, teacher training, inspiration, etc.

- We are still all here in GHOU, voting with our

hearts and minds

Some Succeses:

• GHOU is part of French National Curriculum, Teacher

training exit exams and student exit exams

• GHOU is part of Bavarian State Science Curriculum text

book

• We have developed a world leading use of technology,

data bases, teacher training, inspiration, etc

• We were using “Big Data” before Sergey Brin was out of

kindergarden, almost…. (Google Co-founder)

• We are still all here in GHOU, voting with our hearts and

minds

Some Examples

8 Evidence of test score improvement amongst English-

Language Learners in California:

Some Examples

8 Evidence of test score improvement Chilean Lower SES

students:

Some Examples

Legacy Attitude Shifts/Improvements Compared to Other

Sciences:

Reflections on What We Got: • Amazing resources – Salsa J, Stellarium, Telescope

networks, activities, teacher training workshops systems,

telecommunications and collaboration building tools, etc.

• The most amazing data in the

Universe – the Universe!

• Fantastic people dedicated to making

GHOU work in their nations and around

the world

• Support of IAU and other organizations

Some Examples

From Rockman Report on US HOU:

Students would tend consider careers in Science and

Technology after HOU, when before HOU they would not.

Fund Raising

• Help pay for meetings and workshops in many nations

• Give some coordination and management

• Some private foundations in US support this kind of work!

Action: What We Might Do:

• Every six weeks or so, a GHOU leadership Zoom or Skype Meeting

• Recruit young teachers!!

∞ Try to hold workshops without anyone’s support

• Try to get some funding for workshops to build core materials

• Continually grow evidence that we are succeeding!! Student and teacher

testimonials, test scored, interviews with students, press reports…

• Pay your GHOU dues and make GHOU stronger!