NASA’s Heliophysics Education Team Reaches 341 Teachers in 23 States and 7 Countries

The Temple / American Association of Physics Teachers group of the NASA Heliophysics Education Activation Team (NASA HEAT) recently carried out a series of virtual Saturday workshops during the 2021-2022 academic year followed by a 2.5-day workshop for eight educational leaders across the U.S. in San Juan, Puerto Rico from June 28-30, 2022. Over the course of these activities, the team was able to support more than 340 teachers (170 high school teachers and 170 faculty members) who, in turn, were able to use the materials and training they received to impact thousands of students.

During the Puerto Rico workshop, participants worked through materials produced for introductory physics teaching at the community college and university levels, with applicability across secondary education as well. Materials included lessons that integrated physics and heliophysics content. Lessons touched upon topics such as the velocity of coronal mass ejections, stellar spectra and their interactions with planetary atmospheres, and terrestrial magnetism and the heliosphere. The participants in this workshop, now known as Temple/AAPT NASA HEAT “Space Physics Ambassadors,” also developed leadership plans to offer professional development using these materials to other physics educators across the country.

NASA HEAT identifies a different theme each year for which all partners can collaborate and create educational resources. Access the resources developed by the Temple/AAPT team: https://aapt.org/Resources/NASA_HEAT.cfm

The NASA HEAT project is supported by NASA under cooperative agreement award number 80NSSC21K1560 and is part of NASA's Science Activation Portfolio. Learn more about NASA HEAT: https://science.nasa.gov/science-activation-team/nasa-heliophysics-education-activation-team