Session 1 – POSTERS

This project was born with the view that it would not require any funding at the production stage and that its products would be available free of charge. The other idea is that it would be open to all languages, with the hope of reaching countries which have less contact with astronomy and do not necessarily have the resources to build their own outreach material. TUIMP (www.tuimp.org) provides small 16-page booklets that can be folded from one single sheet of paper. The documents can be downloaded for free from the Internet. They can also be consulted on-line using either a computer, a tablet or a smartphone. The booklets are intended for a broad audience: children from nine years old, students, teachers, and any person curious about astronomy irrespective of their background. The language is kept simple, the texts are richly illustrated. All the authors are professional astronomers. All the information and illustrations come from verified sources. Despite the very limited space, efforts are made to place the astronomical material in a broader context and to address historical or sociological aspects. The scientific content is reviewed by external referees. To ensure accurate translation, all the booklets are translated by professional astronomers or astronomy students. Presently 15 booklets have been issued and 11 languages are available: Albanian, Arabian, Armenian, English, French, Greek, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish.

Ural Federal University (UrFU) is one of the main and most effective centers for educating young astronomers in Russia. The traditional student scientific conferences «Physics of Space» have been successfully held annually in Kourovka Astronomical Observatory (KAO) of UrFU for 50 years and have gained recognition not only in Russia. Every winter, at the end of January, 40-50 students from Russia and 15-25 graduate students and young scientists from universities and academic astronomical organizations gather here. Foreign participants, as a rule, fluent in Russian. The conference initiated many educational initiatives both in the Ural region and, in general, in Russia, and, what is essential, allows them to maintain a high scientific and educational level. The astronomy education system implemented by UrFU and partners includes the following activities: 1) Education and career guidance with schoolchildren in the Lyceum of UrFU. Special program for the graduates of Lyceum annually provides 4-6 graduates which enter UrFU and other universities that teach specialists in astronomy. 2) Activities to attract applicants. The thematic lecture hall on astronomy, implemented in KAO for schoolchildren of Yekaterinburg and Ural region and accompanied by excursions to the telescopes of the observatory, significantly expand the base of potential applicants for the speciality «Astronomy». 3) Training at the speciality, undergraduate, and graduate level. The Institute of Natural Sciences and Mathematics of UrFU has implemented training in the speciality «Astronomy» based on a developed in the UrFU educational standard based on the best world experience. The programs are aimed at training specialists in digital technology in space sciences and big data mining. Practices in KAO and leading astronomical institutions are aimed at developing skills and experience in astronomy on various instruments. That includes the world largest ones in remote access mode, searching and working on-line with modern databases and mathematical software. 4) Participation in the student scientific conferences «Physics of Space». Conferences provide an opportunity to test, participate in the competition of scientific reports, get acquainted with leading scientists (10-15 professors and leading researchers), and form cooperations for scientific work. Student conferences are a catalyst for how scientists of the future are formed from the students interacting with scientists of reknown. 5) Postgraduate studies. The contacts established at the conferences «Physics of Space» increase training efficiency by forming teams of researchers from potential graduate students and their leaders. Graduate students at the Ural Federal University, Institute of Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences (INASAN), St. Petersburg State University (more than 20 people) participate in joint projects of Russian and international research groups. 6) Cooperation in the field of education. The interaction of universities and scientific institutions during the organization and research, internships for students, and graduate students provides access to modern equipment of the Terskol Observatory of INASAN, KAO UrFU, SAO RAS, Moscow State University and world telescopes for general use. Joint research involving students and graduate students in promising projects is crucial in the success of cooperation between research groups from various organizations.

For centuries, astronomical knowledge has been one of the most important components of the scientific worldview and human culture. In this sense, the relevance of astronomical education in modern socio – economic conditions can be justified. However, at the end of the twentieth century, in Bulgaria, astronomy was excluded as a subject from the compulsory curriculum in secondary school. Its disintegration into separate parts and sections in various subjects such as nature study, geography, physics changed the role and effectiveness of formal education in astronomy. The report shows the current opportunities for obtaining astronomical knowledge in school and outside it, through the use of non-formal education. These are school and extracurricular activities, schools, astronomical competitions and Olympiads, observation expeditions. For 25 years Bulgaria has been participating in the International Olympiads in Astronomy and Astronomy and Astrophysics with National Teams. The role and place of the system of Public Astronomical Observatories and Planetaria in the system of non-formal education in astronomy are discussed (In Bulgaria there are 7 Public astronomical observatories with a planetarium). Specialized activities in their school forms allow the formation of sustainable astronomical knowledge and observational habits. This expands the opportunities for students to get acquainted with the latest astronomical discoveries during lectures in the halls, scientific excursions to the observatories, polytechnic museum collections, the Institute of Astronomy and the Institute of Space Research and Technology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. This includes astronomical observations of interesting and rare astronomical phenomena and objects, as well as independent work with the huge number of databases and astronomical sites in Internet, as well as popular science literature on astronomy and astrophysics. The report shows that the creation and implementation of adequate non-formal education in astronomy at the present stage allows to solve the following important tasks: – creating conditions for a comprehensive study of the kinematics and dynamics of celestial objects and phenomena, as well as physical processes in the near Earth cosmos, the Solar system, the Milky Way Galaxy; – creating preconditions for research activity during the whole training in astronomy; – formation of conceptual scientific notions about the recognizability of the Universe and space processes there; – acquisition of fundamental knowledge both in the field of astronomy and space physics, as well as in other sciences of the natural science educational cycle. It is unequivocally shown that solving these tasks from the basic forms of non-formal education in astronomy makes them a connecting element between formal and non-formal education in other scientific disciplines, which include the acquisition of astronomical knowledge. In view of the above, the following conclusions can be drawn: First, astronomy as a subject of non-formal education contributes to the solution of general education and development tasks in secondary education in Bulgaria; Second, practical classes and research training in astronomy can play a central role in the training and development of students and out-of-school pedagogical institutions in astronomy, astronomical clubs and schools. The participation of students in various national and international astronomical projects and work with large databases has exceptional opportunities for this.

The reasons for the explosive growth of astronomical data about the solar corona obtained from observations of total solar eclipses (TSE) are evolutionary changes – high-brightness optical telescopes, highly sensitive light receivers and the emergence of significantly new modes of operation during the phase evolution of eclipses. The increase in the number of pixels in CCD receivers is proportional to the amount of information received. Improving the quality of the accompanying electronics, expressed in reducing noise and increasing the available dynamic range lead to: increasing the size of each frame of the corona and obtaining an image of scientific quality in less time. It allows to combine consecutive frames with different exposure and aperture. The realization of scientific tasks with the participation of a huge number of observers (many of them amateur astronomers), located in the path of totality allows to pile up large amount of consecutive images of the corona and investigate the dynamics of short-period changes in its structures. This requires optimization of the formulation of the set observational tasks and the methods used for analysis of the obtained data. It is a challange to reveal and visualize the corona structures and different image processing tools should be applied. New approaches are permanently developed and lead to discovery of new features, which are essential for exploring the dynamics of structures in the solar corona. In the case of images of the corona taken during total solar eclipses, the task is to find the characteristics and various structures of the corona, such as helmets, arches, loops and especially their development and connections with the underlying active photospheric and chromospheric formations. The task of determining their characteristics, as a rule, comes down to identifying the boundaries of these structures and their interaction and evolution. On the other hand, the specific localizations in space and time of the coronal structures are directly or indirectly related to the various manifestations of solar activity. The duration of existence, size and connections of long-lived active areas within the solar cycle and formed characteristic spatial cluster structures are usually studied. The report shows the excellent interpretive results from the application of classical and cluster approaches. In this regard, the need to strengthen international cooperation of professionals and amateur astronomers is commented as well as the standardization of the observational experiments in the field of photometry and spectrometry of the solar corona during TSE, the creation of a database of observations for the purpose of further processing and interpretation. The need for training of amateur astronomers, the organization of international schools and conferences, the publication of specialized literature, Web-based teaching aids, instructions and consultations are also discusses.

This study represents an initial survey of astronomy and astronomy-related topics in the Malaysian national school syllabus. The curriculum standards for primary, lower secondary and upper secondary science and mathematics subjects were used as primary evidence for the inclusion of astronomy and astronomy-related topics in the national school syllabus. Secondary evidence includes questions that appeared in the national examinations for science and mathematics subjects, as well as selected textbooks used for these subjects. Topics directly relevant to astronomy are situated within the general science subject from Year 4 (age 10 years old) until Year 9 (age 15 years old) and are grouped under four main themes: Earth-Sun-Moon system, the Solar System, Stars and Exploration of Outer Space. Topics indirectly relevant to astronomy such as gravitation, light and optics, electromagnetic spectrum and atomic and nuclear physics are covered in the physics subject for Years 10 and 11 (ages 16 and 17 years old). Although practical observations are not explicitly stressed, students are encouraged to perform simple observations such as changes in shadows as proof of the rotation of the Earth, the changing phases of the Moon, the appearance of lunar and solar eclipses, and the identification of equatorial constellations. Contemporary topics such as exoplanets and astrobiology are not explicitly mentioned, but students are required to engage in hypothetical thinking by speculating on planetary diversity and its implications for life in the Universe. We characterize the astronomy content in the Malaysian national school syllabus to be life-centric and relatively open-ended.

In a metaphorical reference to the classical “black-body’s question” in the 19th century Physics, I problematize the reality of black people in the area Astronomy Education in Brazil. I will undertake a theoretical-critical reading of people’s knowledge and what is the corresponding role of education. I will disentangle not only ethnic-racial and gender issues, but also historical and philosophical elements of science. I discuss how the historical construction of the contemporary concept of science, technology, development, innovation, race, scientific, institutional and structural racism can help us answer fundamental questions: why are there so few black people in Astronomy in a mostly black country? Are this area of knowledge an “affirmative action” for white people? Why does scientific racism, a pseudoscience, not have the same status (concern) in science education and dissemination programs in Astronomy as other pseudosciences such as astrology, flat earth or quantum healing?

The IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach (OAO), was established in 2012 and is a joint project of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The goal of the OAO under the IAU Strategic Plan 2020-2030 is to engage the public in astronomy through access to astronomical information and communication of the science of astronomy. The OAO focuses on building bridges between the IAU and the global astronomy community of amateur astronomers, outreach practitioners, formal educators, communicators, and the general public, and through international collaboration make the science of astronomy accessible to all. In this work, we (1) explore the collaborative framework between public engagement initiatives and the formal education community, in alignment with the strategic actions for the office devised for the next decade; (2) address the role of public engagement in establishing an astronomy curriculum; (3) present the implementation of astronomy outreach initiatives driven by the formal education community and its impact on society; and (4) present the first outcomes of the IAU-astronomers outreach activities in formal and informal education settings.

Astronomy – one of the oldest sciences we know can sometimes be hard to understand even at basic levels of education, like school. This makes many of us carry some misunderstandings about astronomical objects, phenomena, events and concepts with us for a long time. Although, the actual astronomical phenomena and events are not possible to organise on a human’s demand inside a classroom, there are some pedagogical methods those run to help teachers make teaching-learning astronomy easy, perceptive as well as fun. Leaving behind the rote learning, students with different learning styles can be benefited from these. Here, I would like to share those methods with all. These methods are turned out to be fruitful during my overall experience of communicating astronomy to public, across all age-groups. The most important thing to note about these methods is, these involve objects in our daily use like a ball, a stick, a torch, sunlight or any light source and most importantly, a curious learner themselves. I would like to emphasize on the fact that, across India these methods are helping teachers to visualise the astronomical concepts included in school curriculum (for example – apparent motion of the sun in sky, different time in different countries, eclipses etc.), removing any related misunderstandings. Experiencing by visualising what is happening with celestial bodies in space without actually going to space turns out to be a wonderfully insightful method of learning.

Chile is home to several of the world’s largest telescopes, but even though the Chilean population values astronomy as a national attribute, less than a third of them declare having some astronomical knowledge (Marinovic, 2016). In this regard, in the last years, there was an increase of astronomical topics in the national science curriculum, understanding that the declared curriculum is the main responsible for creating opportunities to learn astronomy within formal education. However, the presence and extent of astronomy in the Chilean curriculum were not yet analyzed in detail. Thus, this study characterizes the opportunities to learn astronomy within the Chilean science curriculum from grades 1 to 12. A mixed descriptive design with documental analysis is being conducted to determine which science learning objectives (LOs) are directly or indirectly related to astronomy and classify them according to three dimensions: astronomy subject, cognitive process, and Big Ideas of Astronomy (BIA). The astronomy subject classification uses the 15 categories of the OECD countries’ curricula from Salimpour et al. (2020), and the cognitive processes are classified according to the Anderson and Krathwohl (2001) taxonomy. The interpretation in terms of the Big Ideas of Astronomy uses the original ideas of the proposed definition of astronomy literacy from Retrê et al. (2019). To ensure the codification’s reliability, a sub-sample of 20% of the micro-objectives is double-codified in all dimensions, and the level of agreement is calculated with the Cohen Kappa coefficient test (Landis & Kosh, 1977). After this codification process, the percentage of astronomy-related LOs within the whole science curriculum will be calculated, as well as the proportion of contents in each classification dimension, to determine which astronomy subject, cognitive process, and BIA prevail in the curriculum, from grade 1 to 12. These proportions will also be compared over the grades to inspect the contents’ trajectory, continuity, and emphasis throughout the years. The results will allow us to understand the extent to which the Chilean curriculum promotes astronomy literacy development and will give evidence for the development of astronomy educational initiatives in Chile aligned with the national curriculum and teachers’ and students’ needs.

We present a 20 h inquiry based teaching-learning sequence, featuring paper-and-pencil tasks and practical activities, focused on gravity key, idea for 17-19 years old high school students. The activities’ design was implemented in collaboration with astrophysics of INAF-Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte in Italy. The module is divided into three phases: (i) use gravity to justify the shape of celestial objects, stellar stability, death of the stars and formation of planetary systems; (ii) understand how gravity drives stellar pulsations; (iii) provide evidences of the role of gravity at large scale. We implemented a first version of teaching-learning sequence with 43 high school students. We assessed the teaching-learning sequence through the same interview, submitted before and after the teaching intervention.

Over the last few years interest in astronomy has risen in Peruvian schools and strong efforts to introduce astronomy courses at primary and secondary level have appeared. Thus, the Peruvian Olympiads on Astronomy and Astronautics, in Spanish Olimpiadas Peruanas de Astronomía y Astronáutica (OPEAA), emerge as a solid alternative to promote and consolidate for the first time the study of astronomy as a powerful tool in the Peruvian basic education in coordination between local and regional offices of the Ministry of Education, museums, planetariums and profesional astronomers. In this presentation, we introduce our project OPEAA to the IAU community, which have been performed in the last four years, and now, in coordination with the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education, the OPEAA can play an important strategic role a) to encourage the study of astronomy in Peruvian schools, b) to encourage Peruvian academic inter-institutional collaboration on astronomy education, c) to identify Peruvian school exceptional talents in science in order to systematically monitor them and bring them an special basic education that is underrepresented in our Peruvian educational system and d) as one of the indicators of success of future teacher training programs in Perú, where inclusion in geography and gender are widely considered.

We present results of our recent survey on astronomical awareness and fundamental astronomical knowledge among secondary school pupils in three countries located in Europe, North America, and Australia. We outline similarities and differences in the astronomical knowledge among pupils from those three samples, and we propose actions that might be taken by teachers and educators in order to improve pupils’ understanding of our place in the Universe.

Namibia is world-renowned for its incredibly dark skies by the astronomy community, and yet, the country is not well known by tourists and travellers as a dark sky destination. Forged by a collaboration between the Universities of Oxford and Namibia, together we are using astronomy as a means for capacity-building via educating tour guides and promoting astrotourism to relevant stakeholders. Astrotourism offers many benefits: heritage is preserved and celebrated; tour guides learn about astronomy and complement their earnings; meanwhile tourists engage in awe-inspiring activities while learning about topics like indigenous astronomy and light pollution. In order to implement astrotourism sustainably, we have been working from both a bottom-up and top-down approach. The main barriers include access to training and astrotourism knowledge: (1) there exists a tour guide qualification in astronomy but this is currently unobtainable without the means and materials to study the topic. To bridge this barrier we are developing a course for tour guides, for which we are exploring both online and offline formats. Crucially, the content will not focus on western astronomy, but will include topics on indigenous astronomy in Southern Africa and light pollution, and will be made adaptable for other countries. (2) At the same time, we are working with the Ministry of Environment, Forestry, and Tourism, and tourism associations, in order to help establish Namibia as a country at the forefront of astrotourism. This talk will explore the successes and challenges that we have encountered, whilst providing context internationally, so that dark sky education and heritage can be beneficial on global scales.

We provide our first experience of Astronomy training as an in-service training of teachers of Science in Primary schools, and teachers of Geography, Physics and Mathematics in Secondary Schools necessitated due to lack of Astronomy specific training in their teacher training programs. The hands-on training was conducted in collaboration with the IAU Commission 46 Working Group program of Network of Astronomy Schools Education (NASE). Experiences from both face to face and virtual sessions conducted during the Covid19 period and in preparation of a major African solar eclipse, are discussed. Challenges of equipment fabrication and translation to into local language Kiswahili are presented.

The visiting lecturer program of the International Astronomical Union (IAU-VLP) began in Peru in the 80s and 90s and 8 courses were implemented in the undergrade physics at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. We participated in two programs and after finishing two areas of astronomy were consolidated. We will show the academic and research results in astronomy, the methods used for its development and the various groups and institutions, public and private, that have opened astronomy as part of their objectives, will also be shown, an inventory of people who They have completed their astronomy studies at all levels and the astronomical equipment acquired for research and teaching. We will show the future plans for the development of astronomical observation and how the search for a site for the installation of the National Astronomical Observatory helped to train young students, who were finishing their undergrade studies, to prepare them to start their graduate studies at universities and colleges. international institutions, as well as now having a master’s degree with a major in astronomy at the National University Mayor de San Marcos

The National Planetarium «Mutsumi Ishitsuka» of the Geophysical Institute of Peru (IGP), since 2008 has always offered its presentations from monday to friday for educational institutions; second and fourth sunday of each month for the general public, but due to the state of health emergency it is closed. Planetarium at home is an initiative that will allow us to enter homes with topics related to astronomy and is aimed at primary and secondary students as part of the Science, Technology and Environment course. It will be broadcast on the IGP Facebook on the last saturday of each month. The main motivation of the project is through astronomy, to encourage boys and girls to study science, since they are the future of the country.

We present a review on the status of informal science education in Puerto Rico. Museums, planetariums, media (TV, radio, newspaper, newsletters, ect.), and new technologies (social media) comprise the core of the efforts. The government through its institutions, and private organizations are the principal actors. The major efforts made in the past and the main initiatives in the present will be discussed and critical reflections for the future will be presented.