The University of California Observatories is expanding its youth education programs at Lick Observatory thanks to a $5.4 million grant that will fund research opportunities and renovations at the 134-year-old observatory atop Mount Hamilton east of San Jose.
The grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation will fund the observatory’s Scientific Teaching through Astronomy Research programs, which it calls STARs, with the goal of increasing the number and diversity of students inspired to seek careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, according to a news release from UC Santa Cruz.
STARs will establish partnerships with community colleges and California State University campuses to give more students a chance to use Lick’s high-powered telescopes and conduct research, according to observatories director Bruce Macintosh.
“We want to broaden access to this kind of science, giving more students opportunities to use real science-grade equipment and learn research skills in ways that will help them through the STEM pipeline, whether they want to follow astronomy or some other path,” Macintosh said in a statement.
“In almost every astronomer’s backstory there is a moment at a telescope when they see something they saw in a book before, and now they realize it’s real and it’s something they can study for themselves.”
Bruce Macintosh, University of California Observatories director
The programs also will send telescopes and astronomers into Bay Area K-12 schools to create activities that “bring the mountain to the students,” Macintosh said.
“In almost every astronomer’s backstory there is a moment at a telescope when they see something they saw in a book before, and now they realize it’s real and it’s something they can study for themselves,” Macintosh said. “Our goal is to bring that experience to as many people as possible.”
The grant will fund renovations to sleeping areas at the observatory to hold more overnight research trips for students, as well as to refurbish some of the historic infrastructure.
UCO’s Institute for Scientist and Engineer Educators, an award-winning mentoring program, will train teachers and graduate and post-doctoral students. Director Lisa Hunter will lead the STARs program in the short term as the programs are created and permanent staff is hired to help run them.
The STARs programs will build off successful outreach programs created at UC Santa Cruz, which is the headquarters of the multi-campus research center.