Scientist and technical professionals of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia and science educators from West Virginia University in Morgantown are jointly proposing a Secondary Science Teachers' Institute for 150 selected high school teachers. The summer institute (a two week session the first year and two three weeks in subsequent years) will include lectures in basic astronomy and demonstrations to give teachers resources they can use in their classrooms, including the use of an instrumented 40-foot telescope where participants can make observations of their own. Over the three years of the project the system will be automated to the extent that electronic communication between the classroom and the telescope will permit observations to be made from the classroom. The overall goal of the project is to bring classroom teachers into direct contact with research scientists in order to foster a greater appreciation as to how science is conducted and glimpse the acquisition of knowledge at its boundary with the unknown.
