Abstract: Increased interest among education and public outreach specialists in coordinating the task of “Communicating Astronomy to the Public” led to a conference of that name in Washington DC, following an earlier conference in Tenerife the previous year. One outcome of the conference was the Washington Charter, which is to help foster such public education through statements of principles of action for funding agencies, professional astronomical societies, universities/laboratories/research-organizations, and individual researchers, respectively. Another outcome was the formation of a Working Group on the subject within the Union-wide Activities Division of the International Astronomical Union. Information about both outcomes can be found at http://www.communicatingastronomy.org.
Editors' Note: This paper was solicited by the editors in March 2004.
Nearly 250 outreach professionals in the astronomical community gathered in Washington, DC, on October 1–3, 2003, to attend the “Conference on Communicating Astronomy to the Public.” This three-day conference attracted public information officers, astronomers, educators, and members of the entertainment and news media to explore the gaps in outreach, the current and emerging demands of the public, the needs of the astronomical community, and to work on methods to answer these needs. “Education and Public Outreach,” now often abbreviated as “E/PO,” was the overall subject.
The conference was organized by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), for which I am a public information officer, and hosted by the US National Research Council. The morning sessions of this conference were based on a series of panel discussions, addressing such topics as astronomy in entertainment, image repositories, best practices, and underdeveloped audiences.