Neil DeGrasse Tyson & Chris Mooney Plenary Speakers at National EPO Conference in August

Abstract Deadline is April 22 for National Meeting on Space and Earth Science Education and Outreach in Baltimore

Don’t miss the April 22 deadline for submitting abstracts for “Connecting People to Science,” the 2011 Conference of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific in Baltimore, Aug. 1–3 (co-sponsored by the American Geophysical Union and the Space Telescope Science Institute).

Sessions already scheduled for this wide-ranging meeting include:

• Best selling author Chris Mooney giving the keynote address on “Unscientific America: What’s the Problem? What’s the Solution?”
• America’s favorite public astronomer, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, discussing his experiences with social media and the “Twitterverse” as an avenue to public access.

Other plenary sessions will address the challenges of climate-change education, the Year of the Solar System and the exciting missions it includes, and techniques for evaluating informal science education projects. A special science night will feature leading Hubble scientists discussing some of the cutting-edge research the space telescope makes possible.

Abstracts can be submitted for poster papers, short oral reports, one-hour hands-on workshops, and hour-long discussion sessions on topics of special interest. For guidelines and forms for submitting abstracts and registration, go to the meeting web site.

Everyone working in education, public outreach, and science communication — in space, earth, or physical science — is cordially invited to the meeting. Participants will include people working in formal education, at informal education settings, at government agencies and labs, at nonprofit organizations, on the web, and in the media. Conferees will consider how best to share the results of their work with each other and the public, how to improve and measure those results, and how to make connections across science disciplines.

K-12 workshops and short courses will run in tandem with the conference and during the preceding weekend. The conference begins with a reception at Maryland Science Center and a showing of the dramatic new IMAX film on the repair mission to the Hubble Space Telescope.

This conference is being held in the beautifully refurbished (and very reasonably priced) Tremont Plaza Hotel near the attractions of the Baltimore Inner Harbor. Space is limited, and the Society urges you to make plans for presenting at or participating in this exciting conference as soon as possible to take advantage of “early-bird” discounts.