Springtime at the UA Sky School

I have the kind of job where I frequently look around and have to remind myself I am getting paid to do this work.  Serving as Director of the UA Sky School is rewarding every single day...from interacting with an amazing group of staff, to all the students that attend our programs from southern Arizona, I am constantly amazed at the learning that takes place.  The core of our program are the residential, immersive science programs that take place on Mount Lemmon in the Santa Catalina Mountains.

The Santa Catalinas are a Sky Island, part of the Madrean Sky Island complex and serve as an amazing learning laboratory. Sky Islands are loosely defined as isolated mountains that rise up from the radically different lowlands that surround them.  In our case, the lowlands are Sonoran desert and the summit of the mountain is similar to a Canadian Alpine forest!

On the first day of our programs we typically spend time with students having them come up with scientific questions based on their observations as they slowly ascend the mountain.  Below is an image of students discussing the grassland of the foothills.

 As Spring takes hold the Cottonwood trees in the lower elevations are already displaying their magnificence.

Halfway up the mountain is a very famous lookout- Windy Point.  In addition to the rock climbing (and yes, the wind) there are sweeping panoramic views of Tucson, allowing for students to contemplate the basin and range formation of the valley thousands of feet below.

Higher up, despite being mid-April, students can experience light snow showers!  It's not all work at the Sky School, there is plenty of time for play!

Back to work!

Hawkish behavior

No, this is not a post about politics or the Presidential campaigning shenanigans that we are already suffering on a daily basis here in the U.S.A.  Rather, it is a post to share some pictures of juvenile Red-Tailed hawks that I took yesterday on the summit of Mount Lemmon at Steward Observatory's field station.  I had spent the better part of the day on the mountain working as we had a group of students from Catalina Foothills School District visiting us at the UA Sky School (you can see pictures here).  Following the students departure there was a group of three hawks that were playing near the summit.

The hawks often circle overhead, floating on the laminar airflow that rises over the western summit ridge line and flows to the east.  Sometimes they can 'surf' the air current and appear nearly motionless overhead for 10-20 seconds, or longer.  (It is this same laminar airflow that is a factor in our frequently excellent astronomical seeing conditions).  Below is an image of one of these hawks 'surfing' taken with my Canon 6d and a 70-200 mm lens at the 200 mm setting.  The exposure was 1/1600 of second at ISO 100, with an aperture of f/4.5.  Click on it for the full size image.

The picture below shows two of the hawks playing- the one on the left had landed in the tree and was then dive bombed by the one on the right.  I took the image a fraction of a second too late as I was hoping to get the hawk on the left still in the tree looking at the incoming hawk.  Both of these pictures are crops from the center of the original image but have not been reduced in size. (EDIT: Apparently, however, Blogger does compress them...)

School is back in session

The Sky School that is.  This weekend is our annual training workshop for the graduate student fellows who serve as science instructors at our immersive, residential UA Sky School.  This year we have an outstanding group of 8 graduate fellows who will spend the academic year leading programs at the beautiful campus of the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter.  Below is an image of the group at Windy Point on the Catalina Highway.

As we hiked through the Lemmon Rock and Meadow Loop trails in the afternoon we were treated to some spectacular views of isolated thunderstorms moving across the Tucson valley.  Below is an image of one of these downdrafts.

Final image from the day is a Red Tailed Hawk that spent a few minutes checking us out during our tree identification lessons.  In case you are curious, he is sitting in a Ponderosa Pine, about 20 feet off the ground.  Click the image (or any of the others) to enlarge.

Dirty Science

As I prepare to head up to Mount Lemmon for one of the last UA Sky School activities of the school year, I wanted to share a video piece that was very recently produced by UA News in which I talk extensively (imagine that) about the Sky School.  And for the record, I actually do have more hair than appears in the video!  If you would like to see many images of schools participating in our programs, I suggest (with a shudder) checking out our UA Sky School facebook page.

Passages of time

Let's just put it out there up front:  Today, is my 45th birthday.  This week I am at the summit of Mount Lemmon as we host students from Altar Valley middle school at our UA Sky School.  I posted awhile back about the development of the Sky School here and I can not emphasize enough how rewarding this aspect of my job is.  Last week I was honored to accompany Sky School co-founder Ben Blonder as we traveled to the White House where he was honored as a White House Champion of Change in Environmental Conservation Leadership for his vision and work at developing the Sky School.  Above left is an image of one of the students taking a tree ring sample this morning as part of her groups inquiry project to explore the possible relationship between tree growth rates and density.

So while I celebrate the passage of 45 years (gulp) of my life and marvel at how quickly time seems to pass as I grow older, I am fortunate to be spending this time at the Sky School, with incredible colleagues, public school students, friends, and even my dearest Beth and Ian who drove up to celebrate.  As is my custom, I like to mark significant events with astronomical observations, and I took a couple minutes early this morning to set up a solar telescope and take an image.  I was using a 90mm Coronado Hydrogen Alpha Telescope at the summit of Mount Lemmon, and despite steady breezes and an encroaching cold front managed a decent picture.

And with that, time for some cake!

The UA Science: Sky School

One of the most satisfying parts of my job as Director of the Mount Lemmon Sky Center has been working to develop the UA Science: Sky School, housed at the SkyCenter campus.  It has been transformational for me, having the opportunity to work alongside some amazing graduate students as we create a truly unique and immersive science school.  Each time we have a public school visit I am reminded why I work in higher education, at a public university.

This week, Arizona Public Media produced a piece for the TV show 'Arizona Illustrated Science', which I have embedded below.  The spot does a nice job capturing the experience from the perspective of the students, their science teacher, and our graduate student staff.  I have been receiving a lot of personal accolades since this aired, and the truth is that our success results primarily from the remarkable core team of individuals who are giving of their time, energy and hearts to our program.  Ben Blonder, Rebecca Lipson, Pacifica Sommers...all are amazing, creative and visionary.

Clicking on Pacifica or Ben's names above will take you to their blogs, which are well worth a visit.  On her blog, Pacifica provided some insight into her role in the Arizona Illustrated piece, stating "I find it easy to talk about the UA Sky School with the media because it is important and powerful. That power comes from reality and rigor. This is not nature camp or space camp. The instructors are prepared with knowledge about unique opportunities to emphasize important scientific standards and the resources to investigate them, but our activities are not simulated and our lessons are not canned. Students on the four day stays especially interact with actual scientists, using actual mountains and plants and telescopes, to do actual original research. The potential to have an epic experience in scientific discovery or outdoor adventure is tangible."

Watch the video- it speaks for itself.  (You can read the accompanying web story here.)

UA Science: Sky School!

Having recently changed career paths into the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona, I am often asked by friends and relatives how it is working out.  Sometimes the question is straightforward, other times the question comes from a skeptical place and may be a projection of the other persons own fears of change (much more frequent from long time UA colleagues).  I generally give a short answer to the effect that I could not be happier with my new co-workers and that in particular, the projects I am working on are quite challenging and engaging.

One of these projects is now among the most rewarding things I have ever done- establishing the UA Science: Sky School.  I never would have had the opportunity if not for the ideas, hard work and dedication of my colleague and friend, Ben Blonder.  Ben envisioned a residential science school operated by the University, and together we have launched this new program.  In addition to Ben, I am very fortunate to be working with Pacifica Sommers and Rebecca Lipson who also maintain the vision and dedication to the project.  Pacifica , a PhD candidate in ecology and evolutionary biology and a NASA graduate Space Grant Fellow, and Rebecca, a highly regarded middle school science teacher have helped us to create a truly world-class educational experience.  I could go on and on, but this video explains things nicely.