Highland Center at Crawford Notch is among the sites where Carthage interns will provide astronomy programming, thanks to a new national grant. Photo courtesy of Robert Kozlow, Appalachian Mountain Club.

Physics professor Doug Arion awarded $105,000 grant

Thanks to a new grant from the National Science Foundation, select Carthage physics and astronomy students can spend a summer boosting the public's knowledge of science — as well as their own.

In partnership with the Appalachian Mountain Club, Prof. Doug Arion was awarded a $105,645 grant to put on educational programs in the northeastern United States over the next three years. That will allow two Carthage students to serve paid internships at AMC sites in each of those years, beginning this summer.

Doug Arion

A longtime member of the AMC, Prof. Arion has taught physics, astronomy and entrepreneurship at Carthage. The AMC operates trails, outreach centers and high-mountain huts in New Hampshire, where Prof. Arion spends his summers, and other parts of the region.

While staff members in many parks can capably field basic questions on astronomy after some brief training, Prof. Arion said a professional astrophysicist like him can provide deeper answers to questions from the public.

Carthage students already give presentations to school and scouting groups at the College's planetarium and lead programs at the Griffin Observatory in the recently restored Kemper Center in Kenosha. The summer interns will work as docents and mentor the AMC staff, building on the organization's existing programs to demonstrate how astronomy meshes with geology, meteorology and other branches of science.

"There is really only one story," Prof. Arion said, offering the example that "if you want to understand rocks, you have to understand how stars explode."

According to the grant application, AMC facilities serve more than a half-million visitors each year. The Carthage interns will work at facilities including Highland Center at Crawford Notch, the New Hampshire setting where Prof. Arion led a J-Term study tour in August.

The NSF's Division of Astronomical Sciences awarded the grant, which will provide stipends and cover the costs of equipment. Prof. Arion plans to begin training AMC staff members in March.

Meanwhile, back on the Carthage campus, sociology students will play a role in keeping the program on track. Led by Prof. Wayne Thompson, they will conduct surveys and analyze the data to determine which parts of the program engage the visitors and which need to be improved.