Astronomy: On Leaving Academia

Earlier this month, I got a request for a telephone interview for one of the many academic positions I applied for. While it was good news, I immediately knew that this was not something I wanted. This was not because of the particular offer, but because of the greater aspect of being a professor. It was the moment I realized what had been nagging me for the past few years: It was time to leave the academic path.

In this post, I'll describe some of what I went through. I know I am not the only one that has left academia, nor will I be the last. I think this may be of help to people passing through the same situation.

Hetu'u Global Network Results Published

This is a short post to let you know that the results of the Hetu'u Global Network have been officially published in Astronomy Education Review (AER)! You can see the article here.
More details after the jump.

Easter Island: Transit of Venus (2/3)

This is the second of a three part post series on our recent trip to Easter Island. Previously I wrote about the outreach activities we did on the days leading up to the transit. In this post I describe the main event itself: the transit of Venus.

I've previously talked about the transit of Venus (here) and described the math involved in determining the distance (here). Hence, I'll skip the overview and jump right into the details.

Easter Island: Outreach Activities (1/3)

This past week I've been with a group of astronomers on Easter Island to do outreach, observe the transit of Venus, and do some tourism. This is the first of a 3 post series describing our adventures. Part 1 is a description of the outreach activities we did at Easter Island. Part 2 describes our viewing of the transit of Venus along with our distance estimate, and Part 3 is about the places we visited.

The Day of the Transit of Venus

Today is June 5, 2012 (for me, for others it will be June 6). This is the day that Venus passes in front of the Sun in a rare alignment resulting in a transit. This is similar to an eclipse, though Venus will only block ~1/30th of the Sun's disk. Unlike an eclipse, a transit of Venus is an extremely rare event. The next one will be more than a century from now: December 2117.

I had previously written about the transit (here) and detailed some of the math (here) involved in estimating the distance to the Sun. My prior post details one of the outreach activities I created as part of the event.

Today, this post is short and intended only to say one thing: WATCH IT!
This is a scheduled post so hopefully it goes out on time (regardless, the transit lasts for 6 hours).

If it's cloudy or you otherwise can't see the event, here's a short list of websites that will provide live webcasts so you can watch this unique event online (unfortunately, Team Hetu'u will not have a live web feed):

• NASA
• SLOOH
• Exploratorium
• NASA TV
• CosmoQuest

If one link doesn't work, try another! For a larger list, see the Bad Astronomy post here.

Clear skies!

The Solar System at Easter Island

By now, you've probably heard about the transit of Venus on June 5-6, 2012. I wrote a short post (here) describing it and a second one (here) describing one method to estimate the distance to the Sun using the transit. Although Chile won't see the transit, a group of us will be traveling to Easter Island to watch it from there (technically *have* travelled since this post was scheduled in advance).

We've created a whole outreach plan for our time at Easter Island, which includes a two-day workshop at the local museum (with talks by the astronomers), school visits the following day, observing the partial lunar eclipse, and the transit of Venus itself on June 5.
One of the things I prepared was an activity on the scale of the solar system specifically for the residents of Easter Island.

Measuring the Distance to the Sun with the Transit of Venus

With the upcoming transit of Venus, scientists from across the world are coordinating with groups to measure the contact times of the transit and re-measure the distance to the Sun. There are several websites (such as this one, or this one) that detail how to do this, and a nice (math heavy) paper by Mignard in 2004 (PDF file here). Many of these methods, however, require you to get the full duration of the transit or directly measure the parallax with imaging. Here I describe a much more simple method that requires you to measure only the time at ingress interior or egress interior for two locations on the Earth. This method is convenient as you don't need to witness the full transit (only ingress seen from Easter Island, for example). This is a retelling of the information derived by Udo Backhaus in this website with some added explanations.

FloridaTech... 6 years later

Nearly 6 years ago, I received my Bachelor of Science degree in Astronomy (technically, it was Space Sciences, option in Astronomy & Astrophysics) from Florida Institute of Technology. I bumped into one of my old professors, Dr. Terry Oswalt, the head of the department, at AAS this January and he encouraged me to stop by and give a talk. I agreed, after all, right now in February we are in summer recess at the Universidad de Chile and I intended to travel a bit.

So I made my way to campus and got there an hour before my talk. It was raining and cloudy and I was super tired- I had arrived just that morning in Orlando from a long flight. Fortunately, my brother was driving so I could sleep part of the way. I wanted to walk around campus, but decided to first go to the Physical Sciences building as it was still raining. Already I could see new buildings on the Southern side of campus; there's even a swimming pool now. It looks like things are looking up for FIT.

Upon entering the department, I was pleasantly surprised:

My talk was being advertised on TV monitors! I think this is a first for me. They also had the more traditional paper advertisements, but this was so cool.

I went in and chatted with the Department Head about FIT, the changes, and what's new with me. When I was an undergrad I took his introductory astronomy classes, but other than that we hadn't interacted much. Now I was drinking an expresso (alas, he could only offer me decaf) in his office and talking science. I felt like I was now practically an equal, a point that became more evident after I gave my talk.

My talk started at 4pm in one of the classrooms I had used. I remember once giving there a brief 10-minute presentation on some research I had done as part of a Research Experience for Undergrads program (at UCLA), so it wasn't the first time I had been up in that room talking to people. A bunch of my old professors showed up and shook hands with me. That included Matt Wood, who taught the advanced astrophysics classes and was glad to see one of his students come back with a PhD; Ming Zhang, who I worked with modeling the Earth's magnetosphere; and Marcus Hohlmann, which, although a physicist, was my advisor at FIT.

The talk, Identifying & Studying Nearby, Young, Low-Mass Stars, went very well. It was a bit longer than other times I've given it, clocking in at about 55 minutes, but that may be because I stopped to explain a few basic concepts since I know that many there would be physicist or undergrads and may not know any of the astronomy slang. I had a diagram for describing UVW space velocities (as well as some gestures that went along with it) and a very basic explanation for visibilities when talking about radio astronomy. There were a handful of good questions at the end, which I think I addressed properly, and a student came up later to talk about how the SARA telescopes could be used to do related science.

It felt nice to revisit my old campus. While heading out I bumped into Hamid Rassoul, the Dean of the College of Science. He was always a cool and enthusiastic professor. He couldn't make it to my talk, but we chatted for a bit. He said it would be nice if I came back to work here as faculty- they would like to have new professors and researchers that were educated at FIT. I think I've made a good impression on my old teachers. I felt like an equal among them. Before, when I was an undergrad, I was a bit intimidated by how smart these people were. Now I realize that I am one of them and can join them in discussing science and the future.

A last look at the Olin Physical Sciences Building (the one with the dome)

Science Education Standards in America

I recently read a very interesting, and alarming, Scientific American article on statewide science standards in the US. This picture says it all:

Credit: The State of State Science Standards 2012

The figure comes from a report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute on the standards for K-12 education used in the various states. The overall conclusion is that the science standards for the majority of the States are mediocre to awful.
These standards are what's used to build curricula through the various states and grade levels. For example, I looked up the science standards for California and browsed through to the astronomy related ones. For sixth grade, here's what it has to say:

The solar system consists of planets and other bodies that orbit the Sun in predict­able paths. As a basis for understanding this concept:
  a. Students know the Sun, an average star, is the central and largest body in the solar
system and is composed primarily of hydrogen and helium.
  b. Students know the solar system includes the planet Earth, the Moon, the Sun,
eight other planets and their satellites, and smaller objects, such as asteroids and
comets.
  c. Students know the path of a planet around the Sun is due to the gravitational
attraction between the Sun and the planet.

So, a sixth grade teacher would be using these guides to make lessons that teach these concepts. I think those are pretty key concepts that everyone, even non-astronomers, should know. What the study presented is that some states have very clear and well-thought out guidelines. California is one such state and is graded 'A'. The report for Colorado follows and it's ranked at 'D'. Here's what I found for the science standards for Colorado (I'm looking at the eight grade Earth Science standards):

1. Weather is a result of complex interactions of Earth's atmosphere, land
and water, that are driven by energy from the sun, and can be
predicted and described through complex models
2. Earth has a variety of climates defined by average temperature,
precipitation, humidity, air pressure, and wind that have changed over
time in a particular location
3. The solar system is comprised of various objects that orbit the Sun
and are classified based on their characteristics
4. The relative positions and motions of Earth, Moon, and Sun can be
used to explain observable effects such as seasons, eclipses, and Moon
phases

Compare, in particular, point 3 from Colorado to point b from California. Both are talking about the same thing, but one is much more vague. This vagueness in what exactly constitutes a valid lesson in the various states is one of the points the report raises. Unclear guidelines are basically meaningless and useless when defining a curriculum or trying to assess a student's understanding. You may argue that they give the instructors greater flexibility in what they teach, but really- there are some basic facts that students should learn and this should be made explicitly clear.

Another thing mentioned in the article and the report is the undermining of evolution. You've probably heard about this on various news sources. This is part of a growing trend in the US to make laws that prevent the teaching of evolution or enforce teaching intelligent design, creationism, or other alternatives. One troubling example is recent changes in New Hampshire: teachers are required to provide alternatives to any lesson if a parent dislikes it. This means that a high school student could in principle graduate having avoided learning about evolution, the Holocaust, contraception, or even gravity, all because his or her parents thought those were touchy subjects.

While there is a religious undercurrent to this, I think it's more of a misunderstanding of science and a fear of the change it can drive. I went to a private, religious high school in Puerto Rico and I learned about evolution my science classes, as it should be. I don't doubt that there are many schools out there that have no problem with teaching evolution, regardless of whether or not they are religious schools. The problem, I think, is that most people, and the politicians in charge, have no idea what evolution is and think that scientists are somehow out to get them and shatter their beliefs. Not teaching, or undermining, evolution just reinforces this idea and makes things worse.

All this talk against science makes me think Americans want to believe, not to know or understand. Science and mathematics give us tools we can use to understand the world around us and figure out things on our own. While you may not think this negligence regarding science education is a big issue, in the long run, it will be. If this continues on the same trend, less and less emphasis will be given to providing a meaningful science and mathematical education to the following generations. Student's will still graduate, but what they will require for that degree will be ever less. All of the advances of technology we enjoy, like cars, iPods, the Internet, satellite television, all come about thanks to our understanding of science. When I see such attacks against eduction (or these poor science standards), I have to wonder: why don't the people in power want us to continue to advance in technology and in our understanding of the universe? Are they afraid of what we might learn, or what we might do if we can think for ourselves?