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Last week (August 1 - 3 with optional Galileo Teacher Training Program (GTTP) workshop July 30 - 31), in Baltimore, Maryland, was the annual meeting of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) held in partnership with the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and Space Telecope Science Institute (STScI). The theme was Connecting People to Science and featured many great speakers and sessions. There were six plenary speakers including Chris Mooney, a journalist, author, and blogger speaking on "Unscientific America: What's the Problem? What's the Solution?", and "America's Favorite Astronomer" Neil deGrasse Tyson whose talk was titled "Tales from the Twitterverse" (the room was filled with laughter throughout most of the talk). Other plenary sessions included talks on the power of perspective, a panel on engaging girls in STEM subjects, planning and evaluating informal science programs, and new views of Mercury and the Moon.

There were many great poster presentations about the local and global education and outreach programs, activities, events, studies, and more. There were a handful of exhibits with a great deal of information about their programs as well from the ASP, NASA's Kepler mission, STScI, and others, including a 3D television presentation of objects in space, complete with the glasses (it was very tempting to try to catch the stars as they jumped out towards me!). And at the annual banquet, this year's eight award winners were presented.

While last year, the focus seemed a great deal on social media and Citizen Science, this year seemed to be spread over several different ways of doing astronomy with the public and in schools. The ever-expanding Zooniverse was present for several sessions, as well as dark skies awareness with Globe at Night and other organizations, using online data archives in the classroom, various ways to promote STEM subjects, teacher training groups such as GTTP, and many others. And still, most were promoting the use of Facebook, Twitter, smart phone aps, blogging, and other technologies to get the word out, keep followers informed and participating, and for sharing information and data.

Rachel Ross presented a poster (see image to right) on the current status of the telescope network as well as LCOGT's new Citizen Science Portal (look for it soon!) and included other projects such as Virtual Sky, Star in a Box, and Spacebook. Also on the poster were friendly reminders to sign up for our monthly newsletter and find us on Facebook and Twitter.

It is always wonderful to meet, talk to, and compare programs of so many others who are trying to better astronomy (as well as science, technology, math, etc while including skills such as critical thinking, data analysis, project planning, and countless others) education and outreach to the general public around the world! 

The full program can be viewed here. This year's meeting will be summarized in the 2010 Conference Proceedings and will be available for purchase at the ASP's AstroShop. Check out the ASP website for more information about the meetings, groups and programs that you may be interested in, resources, and more.