Check out our new series of Astronomy Demonstration Videos entitled AU available under the Resources tab here. The videos are 2 to 3 minutes long and consist of a demonstration commonly appropriate for the introductory astronomy classroom prefaced with enough explanation to provide the proper context. We created these videos with distance education courses in mind where typical students go the entire semester without seeing a demonstration, but they are also useful for instructors with limited equipment or limited time to set equipment up. The videos can be run online or downloaded to a local computer. They are freely available for any non-profit educational use.

Perry Samson of the University of Michigan will be giving a public talk at UNL on Wednesday, November 9th at 4:00 pm in the city campus student union auditorium. The presentation is entitled Deliberate Engagement of Laptops in Large Lecture and will focus on a new classroom technique using instructional technology. The presentation is free and open to the public. A flyer promoting the event is available here.

Jason Wright of Penn State University will be giving a public talk at UNL on Friday, October 21st at 7:30 pm. The presentation is entitled Exoplanets Abound! and will be given in the city campus student union auditorium. The presentation is free and open to the public. A flyer promoting the event is available here.

The 14th annual UNL Astronomy Education Workshop will be held on Saturday, October 22, 2011. We will meet in Jorgensen Hall from 8:30 am until 4:00 pm. This will be a joint meeting with the Nebraska chapter of the American Association of Physics Teachers and the chapter's business meeting will take place at 4:00 pm. Activities will include:

• Keynote address by extrasolar planet astronomer Jason Wright of Penn State
• Physics of the Junk Drawer session led by the Science House's Scott Ragan
• Breakout Sessions on Clickers, Video Analysis, Astronomy Software, Spectra Demonstrations, Pearson's Mastering Physics, and much more ...

All high school and college instructors of either astronomy or physics are invited to participate free of charge. Continental breakfast, lunch, and a variety of teaching materials will be provided. Please register by contacting:

A talk will be given by Dr. Duncan Brown of Syracuse University to kick off the Using Astronomy to Teach Physics Workshop. The talk is entitled "The New Astronomy of LIGO" and will be given in UNL's City Campus Student Union Auditorium on Wednesday, July 27 at 7:30 pm. LIGO is an instrument that is expected to make the first detection of gravitational waves — waves produced in the collision of black holes. The talk is appropriate for general audiences and is open to the public free of charge. A flyer promoting the event is available here.