Education and Public Engagement
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey is committed to working towards making the science and engineering results of our surveys accessible to the public. We are also enthusiastic about supporting the use of SDSS data for training and education. We aim to do this through informal and formal education, citizen science, news, and social media. A selection of our Education and Public Engagement activities are described below.
SDSS in Schools
SDSS Voyages is a custom resource for education focused explorers of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Specifically designed to meet the needs of educators, SDSS Voyages provides the pathways and supporting resources needed to enable student-led discovery of a variety of astronomfical phenomena using the same data utilized by professional astronomers. Spanish language versions of these resources are now available! Explore SDSS Voyages
Through our program "Plates for Education" we distribute used plug plates to educators at formal and informal educational institutions. Plates are distributed via SDSS Institutions and accompanied by a custom-made poster showing the patch of sky the plate was used to observe, a package of educational materials, and training on the use of SDSS Voyages.
If you are interested in participating in this program, please contact us, and we will help to link you to your nearest SDSS Institution.
SDSS in Undergraduate Education
The SDSS Faculty and Student Team (FAST) program works with faculty and their students at US institutions with strong track records of serving underrepresented minority students.
Please visit the links below for information about the program:
SDSS SkyServer hosts all the latest data from SDSS, freely available for all to use. SDSS Voyages provides a user-friendly introduction to Skyserver tools, in addition to educational guides and projects designed to help new users explore the data. Some of the Voyages Expeditions may also be suitable for use in college-level astronomy labs.
A growing set of Jupyter notebooks for use with the SciServer platform are being developed for introductory and upper-level college astronomy lab courses. These Python-based activities, which are designed to be run in the cloud from your web browser, enable the analysis and visualization of the vast SDSS dataset without the need for any additional software or data downloads.
Public Engagement with SDSS
Galaxy Zoo launched in 2007 to deal with the 1 million images in the SDSS Main Galaxy Sample. It's now the most productive citizen science project in existence, and this success spawned a "Zooniverse" of other citizen science projects across all areas of science. Join more than a million members of the Zooniverse to do real science online at the Zooniverse.
Additionally, the Zooteach website includes lesson plans and ideas to use Zooniverse projects (including Galaxy Zoo) in education. Explore the Zooniverse
In our Science Blog you’ll find short descriptions of our scientific research and the latest discoveries from the SDSS. We’d love to see your comments and questions about what you read there!
Explore the Blog
- A Statement of Solidarity
by Rachael Beaton on June 4, 2020 at 3:18 pm
- Where does my favourite MaNGA galaxy live? ¿Dónde vive mi galaxia MaNGA favorita?
by Anne-Marie Weijmans on January 10, 2019 at 1:18 am
- Getting a handle on MaNGA’s cold gas with the HI-MaNGA survey
by Anne-Marie Weijmans on January 7, 2019 at 8:45 pm
Scroll through the SDSS Skies with SkyServer Navigate.
Any SDSS image on the SDSS Web site may be downloaded, linked to, or otherwise used provided that you maintain the image credits (unless otherwise stated, images should be credited to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, or SDSS) and link back to our site at https://www.sdss4.org.
We have recently changed our license. SDSS Images may now be used in commercial publications, or for other commercial purposes without explicit approval of the Astrophysical Research Consortium (ARC). Please visit our Image Use Policy for full details.
A selection of SDSS related videos can be found on our SDSS Youtube Channel.
The below video is a narrated flight through the Universe, which describes the scope of the many SDSS Surveys up to and including SDSS-IV. This video is illustrated with CGI rendering of real data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
Email us at outreach@sdss.org. We are always keen to hear about your educational use of SDSS data or resources.
SDSS relies on the collaborative efforts of our member scientists and a number of external collaborations for public engagement and outreach and to develop educational content.
- The Education page of classic.sdss.org,
- The Education page of sdss3.org,
- The Education Page on SkyServer,
- The new SDSS Voyages Pages,
- Or see the EPO Pages of the SDSS Wiki (SDSS Collaborators only - password protected). We can help you write your Broader Impact section of your next grant.
- EPO personnel are listed on Key People in SDSS.
- NASA Center for Astronomy Education (CAE)
- Zooteach from The Citizen Science Alliance
- Shine (Celebrating the International Year of Light with Art, Science and Music).
