Session 4 – POSTERS

Africa has amazing potential due to natural (such as dark sky) and human resources for scientific research in astronomy and space science. At the same time, the continent is still facing many difficulties, and its countries are now recognizing the importance of astronomy, space science and satellite technologies for improving some of their main socio-economic and ecological challenges. The development of astronomy and space science in Africa has grown significantly over the past few years, and never before it was more possible to use astronomy for education, outreach, and development as it is now. However, much still remains to be done. This talk will summarise the recent developments in astronomy research and education in Africa and will focus on how working together on the development of science and education can we fight poverty in the long term and increase our possibilities of attaining the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in future for benefit of all.

To alleviate the educational gap, intensive week-long Summer Schools in Statistics for Astronomers were initiated at Penn State in 2005 and have been continued annually. Due to their popularity and high demand, additional full summer schools have been organized in India, Brazil, Space Telescope Science Institute.
The Summer Schools seek to give a broad exposure to fundamental concepts and a wide range of resulting methods across many fields of statistics. The Summer Schools in statistics and astroinformatics summer schools for young astronomers present concepts and methodologies with hands on tutorials using the data from astronomical surveys.
The very popular Penn State Summer Schools at the Center for Astrostatistics have trained over 850 young astronomical researchers in data analysis. The topics covered include: probability and inference, Regression, Model selection & validation, Maximum likelihood methods, Non-parametric methods, Multivariate methods, Clustering and classification, Bayesian inference, MCMC, Spatial statistics, Time series, Fundamentals of scientific computing, High-performance computing, Bayesian computation, Machine Learning algorithms, Optimization, Gaussian Process regression, Neural Networks & Deep Learning.
The details of the summer schools will be shared in this presentation.

We shall describe the various activities done by us in Covid Times including outreach workshops in Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy. We shall discuss the caveats in virtual teaching of Astronomy and the lessons learnt in the process.

Our knowledge about space and astronomy is enhancing fast with increasing number of earth and space based satellites. This enhancement is growing faster than our theoretical understanding. Research investigators from areas of science are enriching their respective fields but with focused study on topics, such as, atomic physics, physics experiments, astrophysical observations. Most often we lack knowing the connection or bridge to each other. However, it is this bridge, such as between atomic physics and astronomy, laser experiment and astronomy, etc. will strengthen our knowledge, expand the understanding and bring the advances faster. With these objectives our textbook {\em Atomic Astrophysics and Spectroscopy} was written and has been in use widely. I will discuss how lecture course with computational workshops is helping growing the number of multi-disciplinary students/researchers.

There are some previous works about introductory disciplines of Astronomy in higher education in various undergraduation at Brazilian universities, but this is a specific research for Geography classroom courses. Some undergraduate courses in Geography in Brazil offer introductory disciplines of Astronomy, since the second half of the twentieth century. This work presents an updated survey on the topic, and it proposes an effort at the national level, for the benefit of the increase in introductory disciplines of Astronomy in undergraduation in Geography. The data collected from public and private universities were obtained from the consultation of the websites of Ministry of Education and the universities in 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2020 for information on the Geography classroom courses and, among them, those with disciplines of Astronomy. The results show that there are 267 undergraduation in Geography classroom courses, 20 universities of them had introductory disciplines of Astronomy, and there is 22 campus with 25 disciplines of Astronomy, 10 compulsory and 15 optional disciplines. In 2015 four of these disciplines were canceled. There are three undergraduation Geography courses with two introductory disciplines of Astronomy, while the other 17 offer only one discipline. The inclusion of introductory disciplines of Astronomy depends on the actions of groups of professors who works in undergraduation Geography courses, and of the astronomers initiative to offering them. The ideal is that the astronomers who actuate like professors in universities, normally in Math, Physics, Technologies, Enginnering and Science courses, they would can help and offer introductory disciplines in Astronomy for undergraduation in Geography courses.

History, Maths, Astronomy and Music are all mixed up in an innovative educational project that is being carried out in the Faculty of Education of the Universidad de La Laguna, in Spain. Students learn how to teach (to primary school students) about the shape of the Earth, the distances to the Moon, the Sun and other planets, collecting their own data with simple instrumentation and, most important, to connect ideas and different disciplines. The structure and contents of this project are presented, as well as examples of the activities that are carried out.

The Earth sciences address processes within and among the rocky Earth, its ice caps, oceans and atmosphere. The space sciences consider Earth as a planet among other planets in the Solar System and the greater cosmos – what is commonly called astronomy. Together, the Earth and space sciences span what we know – and what we would like to know – about our place in space and moment in time. The Earth & space sciences, in concert with the life sciences, comprise what is commonly known as the natural sciences. In this presentation, I argue in support of teaching the Earth & space sciences together, so that students can attain a more holistic understanding of their physical environment, how it came to be, and where it is headed. Such teaching (and teachers) should receive the same priority as in the teaching of physics, chemistry, and biology. My reasoning for bundling and advancing Earth & space science education has institutional, scientific, and cultural underpinnings. These will be discussed along with ideas for enhancing the interaction, cooperation, and coordination of Earth & space science educators worldwide.
(see https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iktmzxZYdwH2HsilFYp0FRzkcqt4fAMO/view?usp=sharing).

Teaching the locations of constellations in the night sky and the characters that have come to represent them has long been difficult for science educators and an early barrier to observational astronomy. Most of the constellations do not have easily recognizable patterns and the characters that are intended to portray them have dubious visible connections. This difficulty has been partly resolved by a visually engaging method to organize groups of stellar bodies through a pictorial myth found in Upper Paleolithic European cave art which was later interpreted by sky watchers in the ancient world. A participant with a cardinal orientation can point to fifteen Northern Hemisphere Ptolemaic constellations and explain the mythological and geographical reasons for their characterizations and relational positions through the following of one myth. This method enables easier access to observational astronomy and the potential for larger participation.

An interdisciplinary approach can help in inspiring students from other disciplines who are interested in astronomy. Interdisciplinary astronomy may be a part of college course in Indian colleges and universities with the subjects most seeking by the students. It can be designed for students of humanities also. As for example, this subject can be related with science fiction, science writing, philosophy of science etc. Actually astronomy, for a long time, has been an inspiration for creative people from every disciplines. Influence of astronomy can be seen everywhere; from songs, plays, poetry to television programmes. Post-modern pop culture, even cartoons are influenced by astronomy nowadays. Interdisciplinary astronomy can be the primary tool to spread astronomical awareness in general population specially in this pandemic situation.
Keywords: Interdisciplinary astronomy, astronomical awareness, philosophy of science, college course.

Following many of the activities that took place in different regions of Mongolia throughout 2019 to celebrate IAU100, there is a special astronomical activity in Mongolia now has started. This includes research activities for MARS-V organization in Mongolia (https://www.mars-v.com/). The Mars studies seek to understand whether Mars was a habitable world. For this we need to understand how geologic, climatic, environment over time, as well as how they interact today. Mars is similar to Earth in many ways. Like Earth, Mars has an atmosphere and systems of air, water, ice, and geology that all interact to produce the Martian environment. This paper shares about ongoing activities for building a space base for technology innovation for future MARS studies. There was research on how Mongolian Gobi desert as it has a polar dry environment and extreme weather can be similar to Mars. The result outlined Mongolian Gobi desert can be similar to Mars’s surface and have many advantages to start experiences. The project allows people to experience and conduct research for Mars in the Gobi desert Mongolia in the near future for international level. MARS-V is not only for scientific research but the project provides many astronomical outreach activities allowing people to experience Mars right here in Gobi desert of Mongolia. The project also allows researchers and students new opportunities to collaborate and cooperate regionally and internationally.