Rachel Allen was no fan of science or math when she walked into Rob Hanson's sixth-grade class at The Pomfret School in fall 2006. But that all changed over the next year, during the hours she spent inside the school's domed observatory peering through a 14-inch telescope deep into outer space.

Now, three years later, Allen is a freshman at Woodstock Union High School, interested in biology as well as astronomy and working hard to master the math she needs to learn more about both. In her free time, she volunteers as a docent for The Horizons Observatory. There, she has viewed and photographed objects including the moon in different phases and Mizar and Alcor. The double-star system makes up part of the Big Dipper and is roughly 80 light-years away.

“This really brought her into her interest in the sciences,” said Allen's mother, Liza Bernard, at a public program held at the school on Saturday. Bernard and Allen had come to listen to Hanson talk about how the spinning Earth affects the way the night sky looks to us from the ground, and they hoped to take a look through the big telescope.

Several other docents also were there for the 45-minute program, which is held regularly on the first Saturday of every month, and all of them added different pieces of information to the discussion.

Since The Horizons Observatory opened just a few short steps outside Hanson's classroom door in early 2005, he has integrated astronomy into almost every aspect of his teaching. Each of his students chose an astronomical object to study, from the Orion Nebula, a bright cluster of young stars and gases, to Messier 74, a faint “phantom galaxy” 32 million light years away.

As a result, Hanson's reputation precedes him among the younger students. “They all know Mr. Hanson is really into stars,” he said.

Woodstock Union students studying astronomy with high school science teacher Tim Brennan also use the facility, as do students in an astronomy class that Hanson is teaching through Granite State College.

How the rural elementary school ended up hosting an observatory with a telescope as powerful the one on the Dartmouth College campus is a story of happenstance and generosity.

Hanson and Brennan were already holding stargazing sessions for students when they were approached by Mundy Wilson in 2001. She was selling her house and wondered if the school wanted her 25-year-old Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and mount that was on the property. The system, which would cost roughly $10,000 to purchase new, still worked well.

It took several years for the school to raise the money needed to build the observatory, which was not funded with any town tax dollars. There were donations as small as $5 and a large gift from a Pomfret family descended from renowned physicist and astronomer Lyman Spitzer that paid for the dome as well as a $7,500 maintenance fund.

The deck and dome went up in fall 2004 using the volunteer labor of dozens of parents, coordinated by Scott Holson, whose three children have been in Hanson's class.

In addition to the large telescope, the school also received a donation of an 8-inch Celestron from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where Brennan teaches a summer astronomy class. More recently, Chippers, a forestry company with offices in Lebanon and Woodstock, gave the school a solar telescope that can be used during the day to view the turbulence on the surface of the sun.

The observatory also gets other assistance. Scott Griswald of Wild Apple Graphics in Woodstock helps Hanson digitize the photographs that students take through the telescope, and volunteers present all of the public programs.

Students gain a lot by being around experienced amateur astronomers such as Brennan and the other docents. “I use the comparison of going with a botanist out in the woods,” said Hanson. “When you are with them, you start to see things you would have never seen before.”

There were too many clouds in the sky on Saturday for good viewing, so the program broke up early. While putting away the smaller telescope, Holson said he enjoys using the observatory himself, but that isn't the reason he has devoted so much of his time to it.

“Turning on a kid is the most fun of all,” said Holson.

For more information about The Horizons Observatory, visit the Web site at horizonsobservatory.org. To receive emails regarding the observatory's public programs, contact Rob Hanson at rhanson@wcsu.net.

Cathleen Newton, second-grade mathematics teacher at Dothan Brook Elementary School in Hartford, is a state finalist in Vermont for the 2008 Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. It is the second year in a row that a math teacher from the Hartford School District has been a finalist for the national honor.

Nancy Sue Kent, who has taught mathematics at Hartford High School for 17 years, received the teaching award in 2007 after being named a state finalist for Vermont.

From the finalists chosen by each state, a panel of scientists, mathematicians and educators convened by the National Science Foundation designates up to 108 teachers -- one in math and one in science from each state and several territories -- to receive the citation. The award brings with it $10,000, a Presidential citation and a trip to Washington, D.C., for recognition and professional development.

The awards are open to K-6 grade teachers and 7-12 grade teachers on a rotating basis. Nominations are now being accepted for 2009 for junior high and high school math and science teachers. To find out more about the award, or to nominate someone from New Hampshire or Vermont, visit the award Web site, paemst.org.

Jordan Hodge of Bradford, Vt., made the dean's list for the fall 2008 term at Vermont Technical College in Randolph where he is majoring in mechanical engineering.

* Mary Lyons of Hartland was named to the president's list for the fall semester at Elon University in Elon, N.C.

* Kyle Wesson of Wilder has been named to the dean's list for the fall semester at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.

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