OzGrav

  • Home
  • About
    • Vision & Mission
    • Join OzGrav
    • Getting started in OzGrav
    • Funding oppurtunities >
      • Sponsorship request form
      • International Visitor funding program
      • Student and Postdoc funding
      • Carer grant
      • GWIC 3G Funding
      • Research Translation Seed Grants
    • Diversity and Inclusion
    • Code of Conduct
    • OzGrav Mentoring Program
    • Nodes & Partners
    • Facilities & Capabilities
    • Annual Reports
  • Our People
    • Chief Investigators
    • Partner Investigators
    • Associate Investigators
    • Postdocs and Students
    • Professional & Outreach staff
    • Governance Advisory Committee
    • Scientific Advisory Committee
    • Executive Committee
    • Equity & Diversity Committee
    • Early Career Researcher Committee
    • Professional Development Committee
    • Research Translation Committee
    • OzGrav Alumni
  • Research Themes
    • Instrumentation
    • Data/Astro
  • Education & Outreach
    • Education and Public Outreach
    • A Short history of gravitational waves
    • Graphics and Videos
    • apps
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • Events >
      • ECR Workshop and Annual Retreat
  • News/Media
    • News
    • Binary Neutron Star Discovery
  • Contact Us
  • Intranet
  • Home
  • About
    • Vision & Mission
    • Join OzGrav
    • Getting started in OzGrav
    • Funding oppurtunities >
      • Sponsorship request form
      • International Visitor funding program
      • Student and Postdoc funding
      • Carer grant
      • GWIC 3G Funding
      • Research Translation Seed Grants
    • Diversity and Inclusion
    • Code of Conduct
    • OzGrav Mentoring Program
    • Nodes & Partners
    • Facilities & Capabilities
    • Annual Reports
  • Our People
    • Chief Investigators
    • Partner Investigators
    • Associate Investigators
    • Postdocs and Students
    • Professional & Outreach staff
    • Governance Advisory Committee
    • Scientific Advisory Committee
    • Executive Committee
    • Equity & Diversity Committee
    • Early Career Researcher Committee
    • Professional Development Committee
    • Research Translation Committee
    • OzGrav Alumni
  • Research Themes
    • Instrumentation
    • Data/Astro
  • Education & Outreach
    • Education and Public Outreach
    • A Short history of gravitational waves
    • Graphics and Videos
    • apps
  • Events
    • Calendar
    • Events >
      • ECR Workshop and Annual Retreat
  • News/Media
    • News
    • Binary Neutron Star Discovery
  • Contact Us
  • Intranet

Education AND Public Outreach

The birth of gravitational astronomy creates a new focus on general relativity, and presents enormous opportunities, and a substantial responsibility, for educating the public on discoveries that will change the way we view the Universe. OzGrav embraces these opportunities, through its national Education and Public Outreach (EPO) program – for the general public, for schools, and for eager citizen scientists.

OzGrav researchers  work with numerous outreach partners, including the Gravity Discovery Centre
(GDC), a spectacular $10 million dollar, 1500 m2 outreach facility, co-located at the Australian International Gravitational Research Centre  (AIGRC) in Gingin, in Western Australia.  The Gravity Discovery Centre  houses exhibitions on black holes, cosmology, fundamental physics and technology, lecture theatre, and a major public astronomy facility. We are developing new outreach programs and materials for use across all of OzGrav's research  nodes.  We are producing  short animations, videos and social media content to make gravitational wave physics more accessible to schools and the general public.  ​Our Schools Program will be launched in 2018.  Please contact epo@ozgrav.org with any educational or outreach requests. 
Apps
graphics and videos

School outreach program - Victoria

Picture
Take a trip in virtual reality to study the stars!

Mission Gravity! combines classic scientific modeling with immersive virtual reality. In this incursion, students will collaborate in teams to create a model of stellar evolution by collecting and analysing data from a virtual trip to nearby stars. Students will use the laws of physics and the freedom of virtual reality to learn about how stars change over time and the tools scientists can use to study stars.

This 90-minute incursion aligns with standards in the Australian Curriculum and is most appropriate for students in years 7 - 10 and VCE Physics with the content scaled accordingly.

Book HERE

Click here for Curriculum Links and Learning Outcomes
Picture
OzGrav will also host teacher workshops related to our schools program as well as other modern physics and astrophysics topics. These will provide professional development opportunities for teachers to learn new content and design ways to incorporate it into their classrooms.

Are you interested in learning more about the OzGrav Schools and Teachers’ programs? Subscribe here to receive updates when OzGrav is launching new programs! (We promise to only use your email for good… that means will will only occasionally send you updates when we have new programs to share)! Programs currently available in Victoria and testing in other States in 2019.
Subscribe to email list

AMIGO
- ADELAIDE's MINI INTERFEROMETER for
Gravitational-WAVE OUTREACH

Adelaide’s Mini Interferometer for Gravitational-wave Outreach (AMIGO) is a tool used to demonstrate the principles of laser interferometry and gravitational wave detection. By visually demonstrating the interference of light and the sensitivity of Michelson interferometers, AMIGO allows us to connect with the general public in new and exciting ways.
Picture
AMIGO has been developed with support from the University of Adelaide (UoA) School of Physical Sciences, UoA Faculty of Sciences workshop and the Australia National Fabrication Facility Optofab node.

Interferometer showcased at:
UoA Open Day for people of all ages on 12 Aug 2018;
GW170817 celebration event showing potential projects for undergraduate students on 17 Aug 2018;
Photonics Open Day for high school and undergraduate students  hosted by the Institute of Photonics and Advanced Seeing (IPAS) on 6 Sep 2018;
High school student demonstration for Year 12 students at University Senior College (USC) in 2018;
OzGrav Annual Retreat demonstration for researchers and outreach staff, 8 Dec 2018.


Einstein First Project - Western Australia

OzGrav’s Einstein First Project led by CI Prof David Blair (UWA) is an education project seeking to introduce Einsteinian physics seamlessly throughout the school curriculum. In 2017, five postgraduate students were involved in developing and testing exciting new ways to introduce Einsteinian thinking from early on in the school curriculum. These programs allow students to learn experientially, and in 2017 we engaged with many school students from Year 5 to Year 10, and with primary and secondary school teachers. Gravitational wave detectors and the discovery of gravitational waves from coalescing black holes provides a perfect context for teaching about general relativity and quantum mechanics. By bringing students into contact with young PhD students we also try to teach that science is for everyone and that scientists are ordinary people with interesting lives. Visit https://www.einsteinianphysics.com/einstein-first-programs
Picture
At early ages we concentrate on a few key questions like what is space? what is time? what is light? and what is gravity?  Our goal is to open the minds of both children and teachers to the fact that a) there are answers to the above questions, b) the answers are not trivial and c) in most cases the answers are different from those taught by most teachers.  

To understand space, we focus on geometry and arithmetic with questions like what is a straight line? Once we have explored the concept of a straight line we are ready to do experimental geometry on different surfaces. Through simple experiments (like using upturned woks to explore the geometry of triangles!) students discover that the laws of geometry depend on the shape of the surface. At Year 7 levels and above students enjoy learning that the standard formulae of geometry are only approximations because space is curved.  

To understand light, we first introduce students to the concept of photons, particles of light. We use soft toy bullets to mimic photons and the recoil of interferometer mirrors to teach about the momentum of photons. Here we create foundational thinking about mathematics that goes beyond normal arithmetic, to determine where photons will arrive in experiments where light can take two alternative paths. They will experiment with this using simple experiments with lasers. The most interesting results obtained so far from the Einstein-First project are the following: 

  1. Students are entirely receptive to the foundational ideas.
  2. Knowledge testing before and after interventions show that student learning outcomes are independent of their prior knowledge.
  3. Girls attitudes to science improve more than the boys, from much lower prior attitudes to near equality with the boys after the programs.  

Gravity Spy - Citizen Science

Picture
Pitch in and help LIGO scientists on the search for gravitational waves. Join the Zooniverse project and classify "glitches" - noises or errors in the data collection from equipment or the environment.
https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/zooniverse/gravity-spy

SCIVR - Teacher classroom resources

These classroom materials focus on key science concepts introduced in the SciVR app. The app is free to download, and can be used in headset mode (double screen) or non-headset mode (single screen).
Solar System
Give students the opportunity to learn more about the scale of our solar system and how different the planets are from each other. Presentation and activities.
pocket_solar_system.pdf
File Size: 281 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

worlds_in_comparison.pdf
File Size: 323 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

spaced_out_scale_models_-_instructor_s_edition.docx
File Size: 2711 kb
File Type: docx
Download File

spaced_out_scale_models_-_student_s_edition.docx
File Size: 2584 kb
File Type: docx
Download File

spaced_out_scale_models.pptx
File Size: 4860 kb
File Type: pptx
Download File

Properties of Stars
The light we see from stars tells us a lot about them. Use this activity to show students the connection between the colour of stars and their properties.
the_rainbow_connection_-_student_s_edition.docx
File Size: 618 kb
File Type: docx
Download File

the_rainbow_connection_-_teacher_s_edition.docx
File Size: 742 kb
File Type: docx
Download File

Light and the Electromagnetic (EM) Spectrum
What exactly is light? Explore the entire spectrum of light.
the_electromagnetic_spectrum_-_student_edition.docx
File Size: 413 kb
File Type: docx
Download File

the_electromagnetic_spectrum_-_teacher_s_edition.docx
File Size: 472 kb
File Type: docx
Download File

the_electromagnetic_spectrum.pptx
File Size: 9076 kb
File Type: pptx
Download File

Signals from Space
How do we know where things are in space? Use this activity to explore what astronomers call signal localisation.
attack_of_the_giant_space_bananas.docx
File Size: 933 kb
File Type: docx
Download File


ozgrav ambassadors

 Cameron McEvoy
Australian Olympic Swimmer
Physics & Mathematics Undergraduate @​ Griffith University
Alan Duffy
Research Astronomer @ Swinburne University of Technology
 TV Personality

Picture

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
We acknowledge and pay respects to the Elders and Traditional Owners of the land on which our six Australian nodes stand

​© 2018   The ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational  Wave Discovery (OzGrav)
Banner images: An artist's impression of gravitational waves generated by binary neutron stars.  Credits: R. Hurt/Caltech-JPL
Picture