At the Skeptrack at Dragon*Con after hearing Phil Plait's talk and wandering through the vast event, I came across a table dedicated to The International Year of Astronomy. Check out their site. They want to impress upon us the advantages we have gained by studying astronomy and one of their big goals is to get everyone to just look at something out there through a telescope in 2009. A fun and worthy idea!
Of course hanging around the table had nothing to do with it being manned by Phil Plait himself! Noooo.
Of course it did! I asked him about his recent promotion to President of the JREF. I'd heard he and James Randi interviewed about it and one of his ideas is to get more involved with curriculum development in the schools to teach science, skepticism and critical thinking. He's a great guy, so friendly and open and affable. It was an honor to meet him, let alone his taking the time to lay out some of his plans. Be on the lookout on the JREF site in the next year or two. He'll be wanting input from educators!
