Nov 08

Introduction to JINA

Hello World! This introductory post serves to acquaint you with all that is JINA Outreach. First, JINA stands for Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics which is a collaboration between astrophysicists, astronomers, and nuclear physicists at Notre Dame, Michigan State, and University of Chicago. We try to answer questions such as: Why do stars explode? Where did the elements come from? What is the physics of compact stars? Basically we deal with the what, where, when and why of how the extremely tiny nuclei govern the stars in the cosmos. Sagan’s “We are made of star stuff” is only the beginning. But that’s the research side. I want to talk about the outreach side of JINA.

There are many sides of outreach. We primarily reach out to the public and K-12 teachers and students. Our public events can be found on the calendar. We have web resources for teachers in addition to offering classroom support in the form of giving guest lectures, purchasing lab equipment, or financing field trips to one of our labs.

I like to divide students into two categories: Those who understand the periodic table and those who don’t. For the former, we start where the periodic table leaves off and delve straight into nuclear physics, and then connect it to astronomy. We do this over the course of an hour for some programs (such as an upcoming event at the Centre Branch library), or over the course of 1-2 weeks during a camp such as MST, PAN @ ND or PAN @ MSU.

For the younger students who may not yet know what an element is, we usually focus on astronomy, and take advantage of the special connection of Art 2 Science. By teaching astronomy through art projects, children are afforded the opportunity to not only learn science in a new way, but also the chance to use art mediums that may be new to them. Art 2 Science is flexible enough to take place in the classroom, during an after school program, or as its own summer camp. JINA uses Art 2 Science in all of these venues.

During the after school programs, we alternate weekly between science related art projects, and creative science projects, exposing the children to both theoretical and experimental learning. One week, children may paint their own constellation after reading a book about existing constellations, and the next week they may make a battery powered mini-bot that hops around the table.

For more information, check out JINA’s website, Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube.