A talk on the LSST Education and Public Outreach program delivered at the joint LSST Science Collaboration Chairs/Project Science Team telecon on July 18, 2017.

1. Education and Public Outreach
Dr Amanda Bauer
Head of LSST EPO
abauer@lsst.org

2. 2
Education And Public Outreach
Purpose
To provide non-specialists access to LSST data through easy-to-use
digital tools and interfaces that engage diverse communities with
authentic research experiences and activities.

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Audiences for LSST EPO
General Public
Formal Educators
Citizen scientists
Content developers at informal science education facilities

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Key responsibilities of EPO
• Provide non-specialists access to LSST data through online tools and interfaces.
• Facilitate citizen science projects that use LSST data.
• Further STEM education and training by engaging with educators to bring authentic research
experiences and activities to their classrooms.
• Build partnerships with institutions and organizations serving under-represented groups and proactively
engage with diverse audiences.
• Engage with the Chilean community through Spanish-language components of the EPO programing.
• Remain agile and relevant during the full lifetime of Operations by adjusting to technology trends and
educational priorities.
• Provide evidence-based evaluation of the LSST EPO program and publicly report findings.

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Citizen Science
EPO Portal
• Sky Viewer
• Education Hub
• Science Notebooks
• Gallery
This talk will highlight the following with wireframe web designs:

6. EPO Portal
Mobile-friendly
The online connection to all EPO public interfaces
EVALUATION: EPO will proactively test all facets of the EPO Portal with diverse learners and those
traditionally under-represented in STEM to ensure deliverables remain relevant, accessible,
interesting, and engaging to diverse audiences. We will achieve this by working with community
partners, minority-serving institutions, museums, libraries, and recruiters to evaluate engagement
with those audiences.
The EPO portal is powered by a cloud-based EPO Data Center
which allows for scalable, on-demand computing as fit for the EPO
audience.

8. MEETING NAME - DATE - LOCATION

9. EPO Portal - Skyviewer
MEETING NAME - DATE - LOCATION
• Powered with Annual Data Release Images
• Zoomable, interactive
• Curated selections of objects highlighted on Skyviewer
• Alert Stream highlights
• Object Pages (for objects in EPO Data Center)
• Connections to science notebooks and citizen science projects

10. Data Access

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EPO Science Notebooks
• Pathway from less-technical to more sophisticated interfaces and tools, as users wish.
• Use Jupyter suite with Python and DM back end modules, but EPO-specific User
Interface
• Difference between EPO audiences and scientific community in user
expectations, load, complexity of interactions.
• LSST Researchers can deploy EPO notebooks for their EPO efforts and work with
LSST EPO to connect with classrooms and professional development.

14. MEETING NAME - DATE - LOCATION
Education Hub

15. EPO Portal - Education Hub
MEETING NAME - DATE - LOCATION
• Science notebooks allow educators to modify activities to meet the needs of individual
students, provide unique data samples to each student, combine the results of all
students for real-time discussion, and compare class results to other classrooms
around the region or world
• Tiered modules relevant to curriculum (Next-Generation Science Standards in the USA
and goals of the Explora program through CONICYT in Chile)
• Professional Teacher Development
• LSST Researchers can deploy EPO notebooks for their EPO efforts and work with LSST
EPO to connect with classrooms and professional development.
• EPO works with DM to leverage effort

17. MEETING NAME - DATE - LOCATION

18. MEETING NAME - DATE - LOCATION
Citizen Science

19. MEETING NAME - DATE - LOCATION
Legend
EPO storage of scrubbed data
Researcher with LSST
Data Rights* wants to
play with citizen science
ideas.
* Limited to users with data rights and access
** Researcher automatically informed if similar query has been
previously submitted.
^ Only >100 if Data Rights Panel approves such a request
*** Launch Panel verifies Project passes beta testing and
submits full query for official Project launch
Project beta tested with public
volunteers.
Researcher can iterate Project based
on feedback
When satisfied with
Project, researcher
clicks “Ready for Panel
Review” on test
webpage
Researcher uses Project for a
specific audience (classroom,
within team*, etc)
Data Rights Panel
determines readiness for beta
testing and identifies approved
metadata to retain
Through the Zooniverse
Project Builder Tool,
researcher submits query to
retrieve data
Full Project launch on Zooniverse
page
Zooniverse storage of sample data sets
Researcher accesses
sample dataset** and
sets up Project. Can
iterate sample dataset
Researcher action
Launch Panel***
Panel Action
Zooniverse API queries
DAC API and retrieves
sample of 100 rows for
testing project
EPO/DM/Zooniverse
action
Panel representative reruns query for approved data to DAC API,
scrubbing metadata as determined by Data Rights Panel. New
100 object sample set^ is stored in the EDC
Citizen Science

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How LSST scientists can use and contribute to EPO programming?
• Donate code for Education Hub modules and science notebooks
• Contribute Science Notebook activity ideas and science questions
• Deploy EPO notebooks for their own EPO efforts
• Work with LSST EPO to connect with classrooms and professional development.
• Share networks to improve our testing and evaluation, particularly with minority-
serving institutions and those traditionally under-represented in STEM
• Prepare to lead Citizen Science Projects using LSST data.
• Seek out diversity/equity/inclusion training to communicate skillfully and sensitively
with under-represented groups