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UA scientist awarded for extensive educational efforts

UA researcher Larry Lebofsky's work teaching children recently earned him the Carl Sagan Medal for excellence in public communications, adding to a list of scientific achievements, including an asteroid carrying his name.

Lebofsky, a University of Arizona senior research scientist, said he was honored to be awarded the medal from the American Astronomical Society's Division of Planetary Science.

"I was sort of surprised I'd won because I didn't know in the style of Carl Sagan I was even qualified for the award," Lebofsky said yesterday from California.

Ellis Miner, Division of Planetary Science press officer, said Lebofsky received the award because of his extensive public educational efforts.

"He's been an individual who at cost to his own professional standing got involved working with teachers and members of the public to hope make planetary science better understood," Miner said.

Lebofsky, who holds a doctorate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became interested in teaching the public about planetary sciences about 10 years ago when his daughter was in the first grade.

He said he saw a need for children to learn about science in simple terms, without being talked down to, and by using interactive techniques. He also realized teachers could benefit by learning methods to teach science in their classrooms.

Since 1990, he has taught week-long summer science workshops to 4,000 teachers. He has also given several hundred presentations to thousands of students and taught a UA general education science course to about 400 students in the past two and a half years.

Miner said Lebofsky is also the president elect of the Arizona Science Teaching Association and the Division of Planetary Science educational officer for the past two and a half years.

College of Science Dean Eugene Levy said Lebofsky deserved the award because of his educational programs.

"He has been a very efficient communicator of science, particularly in the educational arena," Levy said.

He added that Lebofsky's educational programs are important, as well as other educational College of Science efforts, because the public needs a strong understanding of science more than ever since technology has a greater effect on daily life.

Richard Greenberg, a planetary sciences professor, said when Lebofsky first started educating elementary children some skeptics thought they wouldn't be able to learn about complicated science.

But Greenberg said Lebofsky has proven the skeptics wrong and has assisted in improving elementary curriculum.

"Larry is doing excellent work and he is an example of many people doing educational work," said Greenberg, who has known Lebofsky for about 30 years since they studied together at MIT.

Lebofsky came to the UA in 1977 as a research associate.

He has worked for NASA on many different projects since 1975, the latest as a co-investigator of an 1997 observation of asteroids. Asteroid 3439 was named after Lebofsky.

He is a member of 12 professional societies including Sigma Chi, the National Science Teachers Association and Association for the Education of Teachers in Science.