Engaging the Public with Solar Eclipses Through Mini-Grants

This project aims to serve the national interest by using upcoming solar eclipses to advance the public understanding of science. Two major solar eclipses are coming to North America: an annular solar eclipse on October 14, 2023, and a total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. These events provide excellent opportunities for science education and outreach to students, teachers, and the general public. The investigators will operate a "mini-grants program" to support geographically broad efforts to engage people in the excitement of the eclipses and the science surrounding them. This effort will be based on a similar mini-grants program (supported by NSF Award DUE-1564535) that the investigators ran for the total solar eclipse in August 2017. The activities supported by those mini-grants reached approximately 29,000 members of the public. Using groundwork laid by the American Astronomical Society's (AAS) Solar Eclipse Task Force (SETF), the investigators will advertise the mini-grants program widely and invite short proposals from nonprofit organizations (primary and secondary schools, colleges and universities, public libraries, community groups, etc.) to engage local communities in educational activities and citizen science associated with the eclipses. Proposals might include, for example, building Sun-Earth-Moon models to explain the geometry of the eclipse, constructing pinhole viewers or other safe observing equipment, hosting observing events, or providing professional development for teachers. A major priority will be projects that will reach a diverse array of individuals, especially individuals from groups historically underrepresented in STEM. The mini-grant proposals will be reviewed by a committee of experts (primarily from the SETF), and approximately 40 mini-grants (the majority under $5,000) will be awarded. The mini-grant recipients will be required to collect data on the participants in their projects and to participate in a systematic evaluation of the impact of the projects. An SETF member will be assigned to each mini-grant recipient to serve as a liaison, and the mini-grant recipients will participate in a forum following the eclipses to share the results of their projects. This award is co-funded by the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) in the Directorate for STEM Education (EDU), the Division of Astronomical Sciences (AST) in the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS), and the Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences (AGS) in the Directorate for Geosciences (GEO). This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.