MDI-T Student Involvement and Education/Outreach

The involvement of students of all ages is a key part of Triana in general and of MDI-T in particular. The SOHO/MDI project maintained an active education and public outreach program. The MDI on Triana project will expand on that project to include student involvement in mission operations planning.

Student Involvement

During the development phase students will be invited to watch the progress of the project via a www window that translates our normal progress reports into 'plain English' and they will be encouraged to comment on problems that arise via e-mail. Students and teachers will be involved in defining the kinds of projects that will be supported after launch. In particular, we will encourage students to use simulated data and the 'java' tools the whole Triana team is building to develop useful www pages that can be shared and used to complete projects after launch. Cable-1 TV provides another opportunity to reach students; we can produce a regular "Live from Space" segment that focuses on timely events, e.g. development of solar activity, the smoke track of a large fire, or a weather system (space or terrestrial). The segment would also include an opportunity to respond to student questions and encourage use of other Triana www resources. The rapid pace of the Triana program presents obvious challenges, but is well suited to the typical span of student interest and involvement. At the graduate level, students from each of the Co-I institutions will participate in the design, construction, and/or testing of the instrument and/or in the analysis of data. At undergraduate and even high school levels we have found it mutually beneficial to provide summer employment.

Education/Outreach - MDI-T's Education/Public Outreach program will build on the efforts begun for MDI. Our award winning site, http://solar-center.stanford.edu, provides a wealth of on-line resources for students and teachers as well as for others interested in solar astronomy. We will develop new hands-on, real-time activities using data from MDI-T and other Triana instruments. Teacher workshops will be conducted to help classes make best use of the opportunity. We will design interactive classroom activities for upper grades that may include selection of targets for MDI-T observing. Posters have proven a popular and effective way to publicize our results broadly. We will continue to publish posters and generate material for news media during the Triana development and operations phases. We will work with science centers (e.g., Chabot in Oakland and the Exploratorium in San Francisco) to reach the maximum number of people. We will collaborate with the SEC Forum to make the greatest practical public impact.