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The Beyond Einstein Teachers' Academy (BETA) is an education program for high school physics teachers. NASA’s Beyond Einstein program seeks to uncover the deepest mysteries about the Universe, black holes, and dark energy. BETA aims to educate high school physics teachers on the cutting edge research in the science topics that the Beyond Einstein missions will study.
Each teacher has the ability to impact hundreds, if not thousands, of students over his/her lifetime, so energizing physics teachers and involving them in the effort to bring current science into classrooms has a potentially exponential pay-off. Furthermore, as the Beyond Einstein program is still in formulation and is a multi-mission/multi-decade effort, the students who learn about this science and these missions may be the generation of scientists and engineers who help develop the missions and work on the data after launch.
For 2007-2008, BETA focused on the topic of black holes and strong gravity. The year-long program kicked off with a workshop that provided in-depth exposure to cutting edge research in this field. Four follow-up meetings were held during the 2007-2008 school year. These meetings focused on how to utilize the workshop content to teach high school physics curriculum topics as students are naturally fascinated by black holes. The teachers worked on several projects to achieve this goal. These projects are now available for use by high school physics teachers all over the country.
The 2007-2008 BETA team consisted of Anita Krishnamurthi, Jim Lochner, Carolyn Berger, Jean Cottam Allen, and Koji Mukai. For more information about BETA, please contact the project lead, Dr. Anita Krishnamurthi, at Anita.Krishnamurthi"at"nasa.gov or by phone at 301-286-2597. [More information about the 2007-2008 program.]
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