explained how the shop worked. Joe Asa, a former technician who now consults for the Observatories, told them, “If you learn how to get your hands dirty and how to build something, you’re valuable.” The students had no idea that such jobs existed.
Mulchaey said that all of the students showed significant signs of improvement in understanding concepts and expressing themselves during the course of the program. Several parents came to him on parents’ day raving about the changes they saw in their children. They said that their kids now talked about what they were doing and had a positive outlook toward learning. One child had even started reading for pleasure. Mulchaey was surprised at how much the program meant to some of the students. When emotions ran high at graduation, he realized just how important it had become.
Before the summer session was even over, Mulchaey and Nancy Davis were already busy making plans to leverage Mulchaey’s work by creating an education outreach committee with area educators. They approached the new principal of the nearby Longfellow Elementary School and ended up “adopting” the school. Longfellow will provide Mulchaey with an empty classroom, which he plans to stock with computers, models, and other equipment. His goal is to transform it into an interactive science resource center that will help teachers learn how to teach science better and help students explore on their own.
ON EXHIBIT The Carnegie Observatories is a major contributor to an important local exhibition, Pasadena Looks at the Universe, mounted by the Pasadena Museum of History. Carnegie artifacts on display include telescope and instrument models, photographic plates, and related items showing Carnegie’s contributions to astronomy. Later this fall, Santa Barbara Street will host a cocktail reception and tour for major exhibition donors.
THE GRUBER AWARD The gardens at the Observatories will be this year’s site of the awards ceremony for the prestigious Cosmology Prize given by the Peter Gruber Foundation. It is the only award that honors those who have made fundamental contributions to cosmology. Staff Member Emeritus Allan Sandage received the prize in 2000. The 2002 ceremony will take place November 18, 2002, at noon.
 David
Wilson of the Museum of Jurassic Technology (left) tours the Observatories
with Pat McCarthy, Gus Oemler, and Wendy Freedman (left to right).
They are posing with original diffraction gratings. |
 Steve
Shectman, one designer of the Echelle spectrograph (left),
talks about the
instrument with Mike Whalen from the John Stauffer Charitable Trust
(right). Stauffer gave generously to the project. Rebecca Bernstein
(second from right), the other designer on the project, and Nancy
Davis, regional director for external affairs (second from left),
are also shown. |
ENCOURAGING VISITORS The Observatories recently welcomed
Mike Whalen from the John Stauffer Charitable Trust to view the completed
Echelle spectrograph. The trust has been a generous supporter of the
project. Whalen visited with Steve Shectman and Rebecca Bernstein, who
have designed and built the instrument.
Another recent visitor to the Observatories was David Wilson, the founder and director of one of Los Angeles’s most popular museums—the Museum of Jurassic Technology. Currently on exhibit at the museum are letters from a skeptical public to Mount Wilson astronomers dating from 1915 to 1936. Both Mike Whalen and David Wilson have agreed to be founding members of the newly formed group, Friends of the Carnegie Observatories, which will help with outreach efforts.
SYMPOSIA AND LECTURES In celebration of a century of astronomy at Carnegie, Staff Member Luis Ho has been organizing a series of scientific symposia that will start on October 20, when he hosts “The Coevolution of Black Holes and Galaxies.” Wendy Freedman will lead another symposium beginning November 17, on measuring and modeling the universe. A third symposium, on galaxy clusters, will start on January 27, 2003, and will be cohosted by John Mulchaey, Alan Dressler, and Gus Oemler. The final event, on the origin and evolution of the elements, will start on February 16. Andrew McWilliam and Michael Rauch will be the cohosts.
A series of public lectures by Carnegie scientists will begin next March at the Huntington Library. Wendy Freedman will talk about the expansion of the universe on March 13; Alan Dressler will address the mysteries of black holes on April 10; Department of Terrestrial Magnetism’s Paul Butler will talk about the search for planets outside our solar system on May 1; and John Mulchaey will speak on May 22.