Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2006 11:23:20 -0500 (EST)
From: John Percy <jpercy

Dear Fellow AAVSOers,

The AAVSO has recently established an Education and Outreach committee
and I have the honour of chairing it.  The other members are Pamela
Gay, Mary Kadooka, Pebble Richwine, Christine Royce, and Donna Young,
mandate and goals are not yet established, but we certainly want to
harness the power of variable stars and variable star observers to
increase awareness, understanding, and appreciation of astronomy
and the other sciences, among students, teachers, and the general
public.  Variable stars have already impacted on education and
outreach in many ways, both through formal projects such as the
that so many of you do through presentations, star parties, and
individual mentoring.

We have established an AAVSO education and outreach discussion group,
which anyone can join.  For instructions on how to sign up, go to:

http://www.aavso.org/publications/email/

We are also in the process of setting up an AAVSO webpage, with
useful information and links on astronomy education, and science
education in general.

We also encourage you to share your experiences in linking variable
stars and variable star observing to education and outreach, through
papers at our meetings, through articles submitted to the JAAVSO, and
through this new discussion group.

John Percy

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John R. Percy, PhD
Professor: Astronomy & Astrophysics             jpercy
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