Title: Dark Skies Awareness and Global Astronomy Month
Podcasters: Connie Walker, Rob Sparks, Scott Kardel, Babak Tafreshi
Organization: NOAO ; TWAN ; GAM AWB
Links: www.globeatnight.org, www.globeatnight.org/webapp/, www.facebook.com/GLOBEatNight, twitter.com/GLOBEatNight, www.darksky.org, www.darksky.org/resources/109-international-dark-sky-week, and www.twanight.org/contest, astrowb.org/gam2013-programs/dark-skies-awareness.html, astrowb.org/blog/dark-skies-awareness-blog.html
Description: With half of the world’s population now living in cities, many urban dwellers have never experienced the wonderment of pristinely dark skies and maybe never will. This loss, caused by light pollution, is a concern on many fronts: safety, energy conservation, cost, health and effects on wildlife, as well as our ability to view the stars. Even though light pollution is a serious and growing global concern, it is one of the most straightforward environmental problems people can address on local levels. In this podcast, we highlight three of the dark skies related activities for Global Astronomy Month (GAM). The citizen-science light pollution program, GLOBE at Night, will have two campaigns (when the moon is not out from 8pm-10pm): one from March 31st – April 9 and another from April 29 – May 8. The Earth and Sky Photo Contest is accepting entries through April 22nd and the International Dark Skies Week is April 5th – 12th. Learn how you can participate in these events.
Follow the GAM2013 Dark Skies Awareness blog.
Twitter Hashtags: #GAM2013 #IDSWeek
Bio: Rob Sparks is a science education specialist in the Education and Public Outreach (EPO) group at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) and works on the Galileoscope project (www.galileoscope.org), providing design, dissemination and professional development. He also pens a great blog at halfastro.wordpress.com.
Connie Walker is an associate scientist and senior science education specialist in the EPO group at NOAO in Tucson, Arizona. She directs the worldwide citizen science campaign on monitoring night sky brightness called GLOBE at Night (www.globeatnight.org), which has great Facebook and Twitter pages at www.facebook.com/GLOBEatNight, and twitter.com/GLOBEatNight.
Scott Kardel is the Managing Director for the International Dark Sky Association in Tucson, Arizona. Scott oversees the International Dark Sky Week (www.darksky.org/resources/109-international-dark-sky-week)
Babak Tafreshi is the Founder and director of The World At Night as well as an award-winning photographer and board member of Astronomers Without Borders. Babak runs the Earth and Sky photo contest (www.twanight.org/contest).
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365 Days of Astronomy
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The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the New Media Working Group of the International Year of Astronomy 2009. Audio post-production by Preston Gibson. Bandwidth donated by libsyn.com and wizzard media. Web design by Clockwork Active Media Systems. You may reproduce and distribute this audio for non-commercial purposes. Please consider supporting the podcast with a few dollars (or Euros!). Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org. In the new year the 365 Days of Astronomy project will be something different than before….Until then…goodbye.
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