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Education and Public Outreach

 

 

The Education and Public Outreach (EPO) programs for the LSST are as ambitious as the telescope itself. The program, as presented at the December 2013 NSF Final Design Review, is described in these documents:

LSST EPO will have a dynamic public web presence as well as a physical presence in classrooms and science centers promoting engagement in the research process.  LSST EPO promotes science, education, and research in the following ways:

  • Citizen science extends science goals of LSST and impacts participants’ knowledge
  • Education research possible from tracking registered users for 10+ years
  • EPO participants gain awareness, engagement, skills, knowledge

Sustainable Partnerships with other EPO programs and organizations will be necessary for the dissemination, leveraging, and implementation of this program during construction and operations.  Four distinct user groups were identified during the design and development of the EPO program plan:

User Groups

  • CS: Citizen Scientists
  • CR: Students and Teachers
  • ISE: Content creators at Science Museums and Planetariums
  • GP: Lifelong Learners; General Public

Goals of the Program

  • Broadening Participation to Include a Large, Diverse Audience
  • Actively engage public in science discovery and research process
  • Addressing National Priorities in STEM Education and Science Literacy
  • Leveraging Emerging Trends in Free-Choice Learning and Social Networking
  • Incorporating Evidence-based Evaluation of Participant Outcomes
  • Making LSST a resource for content creators and education researchers

LSST received its federal construction start in August of 2014.  During construction, EPO funding is restricted to the building of infrastructure for the implementation of EPO during operations. This infrastructure includes a public database, user interfaces, and a suite of learning experiences tuned for the general public, citizen scientists, and formal classroom settings, as well as multimedia modules intended for content creators at science centers and planetariums.  During operations, LSST EPO will include (at least) the following components; the estimated numbers of users in each group were used to adequately size (and cost) the EPO Center for distribution of data products.

Financial support for Rubin Observatory comes from the National Science Foundation (NSF) through Cooperative Agreement No. 1258333, the Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science under Contract No. DE-AC02-76SF00515, and private funding raised by the LSST Corporation. The NSF-funded Rubin Observatory Project Office for construction was established as an operating center under management of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA).  The DOE-funded effort to build the Rubin Observatory LSST Camera (LSSTCam) is managed by the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC).
The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1950 to promote the progress of science. NSF supports basic research and people to create knowledge that transforms the future.
NSF and DOE will continue to support Rubin Observatory in its Operations phase. They will also provide support for scientific research with LSST data.   




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