Astro365

Astro365 is a year-round public engagement effort that aims to provide opportunities in astronomy and higher education to high school students in low-income diverse communities. Currently, ~83% of astronomers and physicists identify as male, and ~77% identify as white (non-Hispanic) [1]. All Astro365 events serve to diversify the field by encouraging underrepresented people to pursue careers in astronomy. We currently host two events to accomplish this.

High school students at the Coit Observatory, located on the BU College of Arts & Sciences rooftop, during an ASTRO365 Interactive Night.

According to our surveys, many students in underserved high schools are interested in astronomy, but do not have the resources to have their questions answered. Our first event, the Astro365 High School Visit Day, brings one graduate student and two undergrads who major in astronomy to the high school of interest. We answer student questions with honesty, and tell them all the benefits of studying astronomy (free international travel, flexible schedules, cool research), and we discuss pathways to becoming an astronomer. This Q&A aims to pique student interest in astronomy as more than a frivolous science, but as an attainable career path.

 

Our second event, the Astro365 Interactive Night, invites high school students to the Boston University College of Arts & Sciences for a night filled with fun, hands-on activities. In rotating stations, students will learn about different astronomy concepts, such as plasmas, spectroscopy (with a close-up view of the Rapid Imaging Planetary Spectrograph [2], built in-house!), and electric fields. We then transition to the Coit Observatory on the BU CAS rooftop to look through telescopes at various nightsky objects.

If you are interested in bringing Astro365 to your high school, please reach out to Emma Lovett at elovett@bu.edu.