The NRAO Exploring the EMS/Ham Radio Project: The Way Ahead

Abstract: The National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) Ham Radio Project "Exploring the Electromagnetic Spectrum (EMS)" is an Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC)-funded project that is designed to help young people—especially those from communities not traditionally involved in radio astronomy or amateur radio—by exposing them to both interrelated fields. The 40-week program accomplishes this goal by encouraging learners to build self-sustaining STEM identities and communities that center their governance structures, ways of knowing, and meaning-making, as well as creating a scalable, open-source licensed curriculum on the SuperKnova Moodle Learning Management System (LMS). The project’s mission, connecting and acquainting learners with the development of wireless technology and radio astronomy while helping them achieve amateur radio licensure, continues considering recent retrenchment of programs designed to include historically excluded People of Culture (PoC). Lessons learned from this program as well as the way ahead will be described.