People in the Texas astronomy program broadly engage in public outreach. In particular, the McDonald Observatory's Education and Outreach Office is one of the country's leaders in astronomy outreach and education. The office manages programs ranging from professional development for teachers, to star parties and facility tours for the 60,000 annual visitors to the observatory in West Texas, to creation and distribution of educational radio programs heard by millions of people each week, and websites accessed by nearly a million unique visitors each month. StarDate radio, the oldest and most popular radio program of its kind in the country, brings information about the cosmos to an estimated 5 million listeners throughout North America and Europe each week. These diverse programs within the observatory, together with community events supported by astronomy on and off campus, offer students, scientists and faculty a wide variety of opportunities in outreach and education.
Below is a list of volunteer opportunities. To correct or add information here please contact lara@astro.as.utexas.edu.
| Name | Date | Contact | Description | Website |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Austin Astronomical Society | Monthly | Lara Eakins or AAS | Give a talk about your research | https://www.austinastro.org/ |
| Astronomy Students Association | Weekly during the school year | Ty Holloman | Be their grad student liason, give a talk at a meeting, or lead a star party | https://utexasastronomy.wixsite.com/utasa |
| Career Days | Varies | Lara Eakins | Talk at a school about your career, or let a student shadow you | |
| EXES Teacher Associate Program | 6 Saturdays throughout the school year | Keely Finkelstein | Give a talk/lead an activity with middle & high school teachers | https://astronomy.utexas.edu/outreach/exes |
| Expanding Your Horizons | March | Science conference for girls - plan your own workshop or volunteer with the physics department | https://austin-tx.aauw.net/special-projects/girls-in-stem/ | |
| Explore UT | March | Lara Eakins | UT open house - host a table for the astro department | https://exploreut.utexas.edu/ |
| Family Weekend | Oct/Nov | Ty Holloman | UT event - host a table for the astro department | |
| Hot Science, Cool Talks | Occasional | Lara Eakins | Set up/break down and host booth at astronomy talks | https://www.esi.utexas.edu/community-engagement/hot-science-cool-talks/ |
| McDonald Observatory Teacher Workshops | Summer | Keely Finkelstein | Assist with teacher workshops at McDonald | https://mcdonaldobservatory.org/ teachers/profdev/ |
| Mentoring, Astro Dept | Continuous | Ty Holloman | Mentor an undergrad astronomy major | https://astronomy.utexas.edu/academics/graduate-program/informal-mentoring |
| Mentoring, CNS | Continuous | College of Natural Sciences mentoring of undergrads | https://cns.utexas.edu/graduate-education/outreach-opportunities | |
| School Talks/Science Days | Varies | Lara Eakins | Talk at a school about astronomy | |
| Science Fair Judges | Varies | Lara Eakins | Judge school science fair projects | |
| Science Olympiad | February | Mary Miller, UTeach | Create and grade astronomy quiz for high school students | |
| Star Parties Off-Campus | Varies | Lara Eakins | Lead star parties with portable telescopes | |
| StarDate | Continuous | Emily Howard | McDonald Observatory's radio program and magazine. Do technical editing, science writing | http://stardate.org |
| Texas State History Museum | Occasional | Lara Eakins | Set up/break down and host a booth at astronomy space talks | |
| UTeach-AISD Earth Science Institute | July | Mary Miller (UTeach) | Lead 2-day workshop on astronomy for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade | |
| Wildflower Center Astronomy Nature Night | 2x/year | Lara Eakins | Set up/break down and host a booth during star party | https://www.wildflower.org/ |