Stars
for
Schools
Stars for Schools relies on the generous support of physics experts and professionals to act as mentors for the programme and provide support for schools.
The Stars for Schools programme's mentors provide the key connection between the programme's management and material, and participating schools. Mentors, also called ambassadors by some, bring university-level physics experience directly to a school's students and, in many cases, they are professional stellar astrophysicsists.
Mentors work for their responsible employer or manager, usually a university. They should attend relevant outreach, and health and safety training provided by their university, particularly making sure they follow ethics requirements, and also respect any ethics or security requests of their school. Mentors visit schools at least once at the beginning of the programme and once at the end, and provide support either virtually or with in-person visits in between, depending on their school's requirements, and available time and funding. Through their regular, usually virtual, meetings with the programme director, mentors are key to providing feedback and updates about the programme so we can assess and improve it for the future. Mentors are also responsible for ensuring that participants, and their parents, sign the programme consent forms and are provided with the programme information document.
Mentors provide the primary means of communication between a school and the programme. At the start of the programme they should ensure the school provides the relevant information to teachers, students and parents, and that signed forms are sent to the programme leader, such as participant information sheets, consent forms, and the Raspberry Pi loan agreement. They should also ensure the students complete the provided questionnaires at the appropriate time, and communicate these results to the programme leader.
Mentors are required to keep data secure, particularly personal data such as names of participants. Participants are only referred to in almost all programme documents by their unique identification number. A PGP-encrypted spreadsheet to convert to and from the participant's name and ID number is then only available to the mentor, programme leader and their head of department (as a backup). In this way we maintain anonymized data to monitor the programme, and students' progress through it, at minimal risk to its participants even if the files are stolen (PGP encryption is considered next-to unbreakable).
We ask that mentors have a recent DBS check. The expense for this may be claimed through supporting grants, please contact the programme director for more information.
Mentors need to be able to install and solve problems with the Raspberry Pi hardware. In many regards this is easy: just plug in the cables in the right places. If you've never installed an operating system for a Raspberry Pi before, have a look at this video and this video. Troubleshooting Window to the Stars and, especially, TWIN is more difficult because this is a numerical code that can go wrong in many ways given the large number of options available to the user.
Troubleshooting Window to the Stars and, especially, TWIN requires some expertise because WTTS is a numerical code that can go wrong in many ways given the large number of options available to the user. The best thing to do is practice before meeting your students, go through the papers, documentation including the lab examples and summer schools on the WTTS website, try the examples, and, as always, ask if you get stuck so I can update this documentation.
Mentors should make sure they do the following prior to embarking on the programme.