12D-3 - The Interplay of Students’ Identity in Advancing the Astrophysics Fields in Education

Astronomy is a field of study that can entice many to wonder how our universe works. Yet, it can also demotivate them to pursue this interest further due to the complexity and lack of diversity in currently accessible lessons. The lack of diverse resources and tools given to instructors prevents the proper support students may need to pursue physics and astronomy careers in K-12 Education and beyond, especially when there is a low amount of resources that are free to access for our multilingual students and individuals with disabilities.

To promote scientific literacy and create a broader impact on the issues I saw, I sought to target them through the NASA-funded Dark Energy Explorers (DEE) project. DEE is a participatory science project that allows volunteers to identify "good" and "bad" galaxy data to improve our machine-learning algorithm. I developed tools to make our published materials accessible to a wider array of individuals using the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) mindset. Whether through print or online methods, Spanish and English lessons on our project goals and technical science efforts were the first steps in initiating our educational endeavors for the public. Our efforts have successfully helped facilitate help to our ~17,000 science volunteers in 159 countries who helped give us this feedback during our interactive webinar sessions.

Ultimately, DEE's Education and Public Outreach (EPO) team aims to help elevate STEM teaching by looking at preconceptions within these fields that limit the range educators can effectively promote scientific literacy. By continuously getting the artifacts we create reviewed, communicating with our participants and project partners, and using current AI and visualization software for our project outcomes, we continuously tailor our work to engage our diverse public audience effectively on our current findings in the subfield of cosmology.