The Lowell Observatory Native American Astronomy Outreach Program: Completing the Kayenta Unified School District collaboration

Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff AZ

Investigators

Abstract

The project will fund the final year of a partnership in collaboration with 4th-8th grade teachers in the Kayenta Unified School District (KUSD), located in the Navajo Nation of northern Arizona, as part of the Lowell Observatory Navajo-Hopi Astronomy Outreach Program (NAAOP)in the 2020-2021 school year. Teachers are paired with an astronomer/educator from Lowell Observatory who regularly visits the observatory. Star parties are held in partnership with tribal educators who present traditional knowledge, and students visit Lowell Observatory as a culminating experience. In the spring of 2021, the NAAOP and the veteran KUSD teachers will hold a Navajo Nation-wide teacher workshop in order to share the curriculum and perspectives on cultural connections with others. The project will develop, test, and revise an astronomy-centered curriculum unit for each of the 4th-8th grade levels. The curriculum uses Project Based Learning, and is aligned to Arizona, Common Core, Next Generation Science, and Navajo tribal standards. Students are kept together as a cohort over the course of the three-year collaboration, and their interest in STEM and STEM careers is assessed annually through student surveys. Results will be tallied at the end of the project and shared with stakeholders and the education and outreach communities through journals. The results of the teacher workshop will also be shared with the teaching and outreach communities, and the curriculum will be put online in a teacher-friendly package that can be downloaded. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.