Dara Gardner

Dara Gardner

Fellowship Placement: United States House of Representatives
Hometown: Colorado Springs, CO

Dara Hallman Gardner received her B.S.Ed. from Texas A&M University and her M.Ed. from Western Washington University. She worked at Pacific Science Center (PSC) in Seattle for ten years, training at the Willard W. Smith planetarium. As teacher education supervisor, she administered a National Science Foundation grant to work with teachers in rural schools. She received PSC’s Education award, presented at national conferences, and served on the state education board’s committee on science standards.

After teaching for seven years in Arizona, she and her family moved to Colorado Springs. For 13 years, she has taught with Harrison District 2’s Home School Academy, teaching science to part-time students of the district, mostly middle and high schoolers. With her portable planetarium, she integrates space science into her curriculum, as well as doing programs in a neighborhood Title I school. For the last six years, she has helped students do research through NASA-partner Growing Beyond Earth, focusing on space botany, and presenting to NASA and university scientists. She also wrote a proposal accepted by Amateur Radio on the International Space Station for students to speak live with the ISS. The proposal included a year-long focus on astronomy, which included planetarium learning, two eclipse events, even a ham radio club, in addition to the ISS contact. She coordinated a visit to the school from two astronauts, General Kevin Chilton and Lieutenant General Susan Helms. She received her ham Technician license last year, KF0NIX.

She is an official Eclipse Ambassador through NASA-partner Astronomy Society of the Pacific and has lectured at the Air Force Academy planetarium on NASA’s Heliophysics Big Year, jointly sponsored by the AFA and the MacLaren Society. She has recently been inducted into the Space Foundation’s Teacher Liaison program and attended the Space Foundations’ Symposium in April.