Uwingu Announces Grant to 2013 Launch Pad Astronomy Education Workshop

BOULDER, Colo. - June 11, 2013 - PRLog -- Uwingu™ announced today that it has awarded a grant to the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop. This grant was funded by proceeds from Uwingu’s exoplanet naming campaign for the public at www.uwingu.com.

The Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop (LPAW) is a one-week Astronomy 101-level course intended for writers, educators, filmmakers, and editors. LPAW’s goal is to promote astronomy by educating those with an audience. The workshop was created by Drs. Michael Brotherton and James Verley; it is held every summer at the University of Wyoming. This year LPAW will be held 14-21 July.

“Uwingu’s goals are to fund space research and education projects, and to help the public better connect to the sky and space.” said Uwingu CEO, Dr. Alan Stern. “This new grant to LPAW fulfills all those objectives, and we’re excited to provide our support.”

The LPAW founder Dr. Michael Brotherton added “We are very grateful to Uwingu for their assistance. With the reduction of Education and Public Outreach funding, we were unable to obtain funding from NASA or the NSF this year. Uwingu’s timely assistance enabled us to offset some of the expenses to our students and help make this year’s workshop a reality."

Uwingu is currently conducting the world’s only exoplanet naming and Adopt-a-Planet campaign, which allows members of the public to nominate names for planets around far away stars. Any nominated name that reaches 1,000 votes will qualify its namer to adopt the far away planet of their choice with that name from official databases created by astronomers. Funds collected from planet name nominations and voting help fuel The Uwingu Fund for space research and education grants.

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About Uwingu: Uwingu (which means “sky” in Swahili, and is pronounced “oo-wing-oo”) is led by a team of leading astronomers, planetary scientists, former space program executives, and educators. The company and it’s advisory board includes space historian and author Andrew Chaikin; space educator Dr. Emily CoBabe-Ammann; author and former museum science director Dr. David Grinspoon; planet hunter Dr. Geoff Marcy; planetary scientist and aerospace executive Dr. Teresa Segura; planetary scientist and former NASA science chief Dr. Alan Stern; planetary scientist and CEO of the Planetary Science Institute Dr. Mark Sykes; former Executive Director of the Planetary Society Dr. Louis Friedman; and space artists Jon Lomberg and Dr. Dan Durda. In September, Uwingu successfully concluded one of the 25 largest Indiegogo crowd-funding campaigns ever to launch an ongoing series of public engagement projects. Visit Uwingu’s web site at www.uwingu.com to learn more.

About LPAW: Launch Pad is a workshop for established writers, filmmakers, and other creative professionals to provide a university-level course in modern astronomy. Attendees receive instruction through guest lectures, and observation through the University of Wyoming’s professional telescopes. Launch Pad was created by Dr. Michael Brotherton, an astronomer and science fiction author, and Dr. James Verley, a specialist in science education. More information may be found at http://www.launchpadworkshop.org/


For more information, contact Dr. Alan Stern at stern@uwingu.com, or at 970-281-SKY1. Follow Uwingu on Twitter @UwinguSky; and friend Uwingu on Facebook.