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The Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer mission is described. For the first six months, an all-sky survey will be carried out covering 90 to 750 Å, or essentially the entire extreme ultraviolet (EUV) bandpass. This EUV survey will be made in four bands, or colors: λλ 90-150 Å, 170-250 Å, 400-600 Å, and 550-750 Å. A portion of the sky which is free from the normally intense 304 Å geocoronal helium background will be surveyed at greater sensitivity; the wavelength coverage of this band is from 90 to 400 Å. Following the sky survey portion of the mission, spectroscopy of individual sources will be carried out. Three spectrometers employing novel variable line-space gratings will provide spectra with ~1 Å resolution over the band from 70 to 760 Å. This spectroscopy will be carried out by guest observers chosen by NASA in a manner roughly analogous to the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) guest observer program.

Evaluation and assessments of informal education programs, small or large, such as science museum traveling exhibits, interpretive kiosks, hands-on activities and very large public programs have been challenging due to the diverse nature of objectives, setups, and expected outcomes of these programs. Almost all institutions that develop and present IE programs include, in their staff, evaluation specialists. However, for very large public outreach efforts, which include participation of many institutions located across the country, larger evaluation groups/institutions can contribute more objective and extensive evaluation and assessment instruments. Such instruments will help to identify whether the program was successful and if the learning objectives were achieved. They can also lead to ‘lessons learned’ for future events and serve as possible model evaluation instruments for informal education institutions/museums/science centers where the budgets do not allow for contracting independent reviewers. The Eclipse 2001 event was developed and executed with the partnership of the Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum, (SECEF), The Exploratorium (the Museum of Science, Art and Human Perception, in San Francisco), and NASA’s STEREO Mission. American Institutes for Research (AIR), an independent evaluation company from Boston was contracted to develop and implement the evaluation.