Afterschool Universe Announcement

Become a certified trainer for NASA's Afterschool Universe program and bring the universe down to Earth for your colleagues and their students.

Afterschool Universe is a 12-session out-of-school-time astronomy curriculum for middle-school students. It explores astronomy concepts through engaging hands-on activities and takes participants on a journey through the universe beyond the solar system. The goal of the program is to introduce program leaders and students to astronomy and the universe we live in.

The program was developed in partnership with the DC Children & Youth Investment Trust Corp, and it is an approved resource for Great Science for Girls. General information is available at: http://universe.nasa.gov/au/. An independent review of the program is available on the Science After School Consumers Guide: http://www.sedl.org/cgi-bin/mysql/afterschool/science.cgi?resource=61

Applications are currently being soliciting from trainers in out-of-school-time networks to attend a train-the-trainer workshop in December 2010. You will attend a special, all-expenses-paid three-day training workshop at NASA Goddard (in Greenbelt, MD) that will prepare you to run training workshops in your own communities.

In order to participate, your network must commit to recruiting at least 10 middle school sites, offering the training, and ensuring that the sites implement the program. The commitment also includes participation in the project evaluation – we assure you that this program has already been rigorously evaluated and this train-the-trainer effort will also be studied for effectiveness. There is more information about the required commitment in the application: http://universe.nasa.gov/au/trainer_training.html