Education & Public Outreach

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Overview

LSST will open up a whole new era of astronomical discovery for scientists, and LSST’s Education and Public Outreach (EPO) program will provide opportunities for a broader audience to interact with and explore LSST data. LSST is unique among large telescope projects in that its EPO program is being constructed in tandem with the observatory itself; the products described below will be introduced when the LSST Survey begins in 2022. The LSST EPO team has identified four primary audiences; below is a description of the products currently in development for each one. For more information about any of these, please send an email to education@lsst.org [2].

General Public

The EPO Website, currently under construction, will feature news about LSST discoveries, and profiles of LSST scientists and engineers and their work. Designed to be accessible and engaging to a diverse audience, the website will provide non-specialists with online opportunities to explore LSST data, and to learn how that data contributes to science and discovery. The website will be optimized for use on mobile devices, and will contain Spanish-language content relevant to the Chilean community.

Planetariums & Informal Science Centers

LSST EPO will maintain an easy-to-use gallery of high-quality multimedia visualizations that can be downloaded and integrated into exhibits and presentations. This will provide flexibility to institutions of differing size and technological capability. Visualizations, associated metadata, and distribution methods will follow industry standards and best practices.

Formal Educators

EPO is developing online, data-driven classroom investigations for students in advanced middle school through college. The topics cover commonly-taught principles in astronomy and physics. Each investigation is designed for use with Next Generation Science Standards in the United States and the Curriculum Nacional in Chile. All investigations come with support and assessment materials for instructors. No special software is needed to access the investigations, which will be available in English and Spanish. Click here [3] to learn more.

Citizen Scientist Researchers

LSST EPO will provide support to researchers who create Citizen Science projects using LSST data, including a dedicated project-building tool on the Zooniverse platform. Projects can be built with data from an LSST data release, alert-stream data, or any combination of the two. Once established, these projects will allow citizen scientists around the world to participate in the discovery process enabled by LSST.