About Us
Stars at Yerkes teachers began as a professional development community called ARCS. Since that beginning, teachers from other Yerkes professional development programs such as YAAYS and the MATL program at Aurora University-George Williams College have added their expertise to the group. These teachers continue to meet at Yerkes and organize professional development for themselves and others at Yerkes and other amazing places.
Our goals are to:
Increase the content expertise of mathematics and science teachers.
Increase teaching skills through access to the expertise of mathematicians, scientists, and other professionals, their technologies and resources.
Increase the understanding and application of educational resources.
The background image you see on our pages is the star cluster
NGC 5139 and was taken with the Skynet telescopes in Chile.
Stars at Yerkes teacher Kathleen Roper of Hoyleton Grade School practices a classroom exercise that demonstrates the properties of the light spectrum. She uses equipment from the Active Astronomy Kit from NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) project.
Dr. Rich Kron, professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago discusses the cosmos with students from Wilmington Middle School in Wilmington, Illinois.
- photo by Sherry Shelley