Astronomers are the 'canaries in the coalmine' for a number of major environmental issues, including light pollution, climate change, space crowding, and polluting other bodies in space. What can we learn about these issues, and what can we do about them?
Mountains of Stars is a public science education program which aims to create Environmental Awareness from a Cosmic Perspective. Since 2012, more than 72000 people have participated in our programs, which use astronomy to engage participants with the natural environment. Mountains of Stars has trained hundreds of undergraduate students, nature guides, and environmental educators in science communication, public engagement, and environmental issues, many of whom have gone on to careers in education and science research. Our program website is
https://www.mountainsofstars.org and our Facebook presence is at
https://facebook.com/mountainsofstars.
Douglas Arion, PhD is the director of Mountains of Stars, a public science outreach and education program that engages the public with ‘environmental awareness from a cosmic perspective’, and is Professor Emeritus of Physics and Astronomy and Donald D. Hedberg Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Entrepreneurial
Studies at Carthage College. He founded the college’s Griffin Observatory and led observing programs at Yerkes, Steward, and Kitt Peak National Observatories.
He co-founded Galileoscope to provide high quality, low cost telescopes for worldwide promotion of science education. Initially launched for the International Year of Astronomy 2009 and the International Year of Light 2015, more than 270,000 are now
in use in over 110 countries, and a new edition featuring solar filters for the upcoming eclipses is now available.
Arion led the effort to create the AMC Maine Woods International Dark Sky Park, which protects over 100,000 acres in Maine – the last substantial dark sky region in the eastern 2/3 of the US. He produced Defending the Dark, a documentary on dark skies in
Maine that has been shown on PBS across the US and at several major film festivals.
He has conducted research in many fields, including the solar
atmosphere, radiation effects on electronics and space systems, instrumentation development, and asteroid compositions.
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