PhysTEC Recruiting Grant at ETSU: Challenges and Successes

In Spring 2015 and again in Spring 2016, undergraduate Physics and Astronomy majors and minors from East Tennessee State University participated in a 2-day workshop in Radio Astronomy at the Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute in North Carolina. At the workshop, students learned the basics of radio astronomy and developed classroom exercises based on the use of the PARI radio telescope. After the workshop, the students led classroom exercises on radio astronomy in the introductory Astronomy classes at ETSU and again at local high schools. This program gave Physics/Astronomy students experience in leading classroom exercises as well as radio astronomy. One of the goals of the program is to encourage Physics majors to consider high school teaching as a career. In this poster, we describe some of the challenges we faced in organizing such a program, as well as some of the successes of the program.