Outreach Update

Published in the RSAA Lunations
Vol1 Issue8 1–30 September 2020

 Our National Science Week Satellite Selfie is on track to be published this Friday (thanks to Brad’s erratic sleep schedule)! Hundreds of groups from across the ACT and surrounds participated, including national institutions like the War Memorial and Questacon, the Governor General, and dozens of embassies, businesses, and schools. We even got a couple of marriage proposals!   

To complement the Satellite Selfie, we ran two webinars all about satellites, one aimed at the Northern Territory and the other at ACT. Panellists were from a range of organisations and universities including the Northern Australian Fire Information, Maxar, UNSW, Charles Darwin University, Geoscience Australia, CSIRO, as well as Shanae King from Stromlo.

In other news, we have been doing lots of online outreach this year, including Facebook Live talks for students, teachers, families, and adults. You can find recordings of our past talks on the RSAA website.

Recently, Wei Shen Oh gave a talk on “Star Clusters: What's the Big Deal?”

On 1 August we worked with SciScouts to deliver a talk to joey scouts from across Australia and even the world. Eloise Birchall, Brad Tucker, and Abby Hodges participated as speakers. Our next SciScouts webinars will be on 18 September for cub scouts and 19 September for scouts and venturers.

At our August National Science Week public night, Prof Penny King from RSES talked about “Lift Off to Mars – Exciting News About the Red Planet” and Prof Kate Reynolds from CHM discussed space psychology in a talk titled “Mutiny in space? Team risks and opportunities for spaceflight missions". Our next (online) public night will be on 25 September.

We are also continuing our Sunday Space with the Canberra Times:

On the 2nd of August, former intern Abby Hodges explained how we can keep space safe from bugs - including our own!

On the 9th of August, former intern Staci Pearlman highlighted some remarkable women astronomers.

Highlighting satellite selfie, on the 16th of August PhD student and Geoscience Australia intern Eloise Birchall explained what we can do with Earth observations satellites, like the ones being used in Satellite Selfie. 

On the 23rd of August, Doris Grosse highlighted the great work of our AO and space debris group.

On the 30th of August, Brad Tucker tried to calm everyone’s nerves, telling them not to worry about the asteroid that may potentially hit the Earth before the US election.

If you’d like to be involved in any outreach, such as giving a talk on Facebook Live or writing an article for Sunday Space, please email outreach@mso.anu.edu.au

 

Brittany Carter

Outreach Coordinator