Family Astro
The goal of Family Astro is to sponsor astronomy related, age-appropriate activities for kids and their families. The events are hosted 2-3 times per year (once per semester or season) and are located in Pupin.
Over the past year and a half we have been leaning towards assigning a theme to each Family Astro event. Some examples of past themes include The Sun, Comet Holmes, Asteroids & Comets (to coincide with meteor showers), and Dark Skies (i.e. light pollution). A theme is not necessary, but we do try to have kids engaged in a hands-on activity for about half of the event. A tour of the observatory is always given.
Recently, parents have been expecting kids to look through telescopes during the Family Astro event. This is not mandatory, but early evening times have been chosen for the last few events in order to accommodate this request. Even though we remind parents that they are allowed to bring their kids to Public Observing nights, it's nice that the kids have the opportunity for a more exclusive (and less crowded) viewing of their own.
Number of people required
- 3-4 volunteers
Time commitment
- 30-60 minutes before-hand for a meeting to discuss ideas for activities.
- Usually half of the event day, if you are in charge of an activity
Leadership
- Pick a date (usually a Saturday) and a time interval (2 hours long).
- Once you have picked a date and perhaps a theme, write a description that can be used to advertise the event on the website or other publications. Give this description to the Outreach Director.
- Several weeks before the event, make sure to remind the Outreach Director (if he/she has not reminded you) to pick the age group, number limitations, etc (see Restrictions below) so that an email announcement can be made to the outreach list.
- Important Update (Spring 2010): A gmail account was just set up in order to accommodate the RSVP emails. The outreach director can forward RSVPs to familyastro.cu@… or include it in the announcement email for future events. If access is needed to the account, contact Lia. If the password needs to be reset some day, the security question has been created so that any Columbia student will be able to answer it.
- Meet with your volunteers the week of the event to decide on the final activities and assign roles.
- Meet with volunteers before the event to set up the rooms you will be using along with demonstrations/activities. Don't forget to post signs directing families to their destination!
- Have fun with the kids!
- Clean up (with the help of your volunteers, presumably).
- Write up a brief explanation of what happened at the event (i.e. a paragraph or two) for the outreach website. For examples, see: past events. Send this description to the Outreach Director, who will post it.
- Update the outreach wiki to include the event. Remove it from the list of scheduled events, and copy/paste it into the list of past events along with a list of volunteers and # of attendees.
- Email Millie with information about who volunteered and who should be paid (only grads and undergrads). Generally, if a volunteer was there the whole time, they should be paid 2.5 hours for the event (include the lecturer if he/she is a student).
Restrictions
- Pick an appropriate age group that you want to cater towards, somewhere between 6 and 12 years old.
- We often ask attendees to 'sign-up' by RSVP-ing to the website and email announcement. (This email will be sent out by the moderator of the outreach list.) RSVPs should hopefully include the number and ages of children who will attend.
- We often limit the number of attendees, depending on what type of activities will be done. (If you are not breaking the children into groups, it is best to keep the attendance low, around 20-25 kids.)
- Remember that we can get a significant number of no-shows, especially based on the weather. Gorgeous, sunny afternoons tend to yield low attendance. You will probably not reach whatever number cap you initially set for attendance.
