unawe newsletter, march 2008

Universe Awareness for Young Children – Newsletter March 2008

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Total lunar eclipse skypecast

On February 21, 2008, a total lunar eclipse

was visible in the Americas, the Atlantic,

Europe and Africa. This was celebrated with

a Universe Awareness Skypecast. Sean

McCabe, with the support of

RenaissanceRe, broadcast from Victor Scott

Primary School in Bermuda. In the Southern

hemisphere, Kevin Govender, with the

support of the Sustainability Institute,

broadcast from Lynedoch Primary School in

Stellenbosch, South Africa. The skypecasting

studio was based in Leiden.

The whole show was conducted in two languages: English and Spanish. We are

grateful to Rafael Martinez Galarza for running the Spanish side. In addition to

attracting the two schools, the skypecast drew participants from the U.S., Chile,

Colombia, Peru, Spain, Germany and the UK who shared their photographs and

impressions of the eclipse.

http://www.unawe.org/eclipse2008/

http://unawe.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=221&Itemid=2

3rd UNAWE Multidisciplinary Workshop

Between Feb 25 and 27, some 25

participants representing the UK, Kenya,

Australia, Colombia, India, the

Netherlands, Italy, South Africa, Germany,

Ireland, Venezuela, Indonesia, Chile,

Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, and Brazil

met in Leiden for a three-day workshop.

Our Tunisian colleagues were sorely

missed.

A report will be made available on the

UNAWE website in the next few months.


http://www.lorentzcenter.nl/lc/web/2008/296/info.php3?wsid=296

UNAWE Bermuda

UNAWE International


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1st Teacher Training workshop

The international workshop was followed

by a teacher training day. Some 55 Dutch

primary school teachers, principals,

science coordinators and educators took

part in the event.

There is strong demand for the event to

be repeated and the workshop itself will

be run in other countries soon.


http://www.lorentzcenter.nl/lc/web/2008/301/info.php3?wsid=301

UNAWE Foundation

On March 5, 2008, a foundation for Universe Awareness was officially established in

Leiden, The Netherlands under the name Stichting Universe Awareness Foundation,

a.k.a. UNAWE Foundation.

BERMUDA

The first UNAWE project on

Bermudian soil took place on

Wednesday, February 20. The pilot

project was kindly sponsored by

Bermudian re-insurer RenaissanceRe

and took place in Victor Scott

primary school in Hamilton. The event

made first page news in the main

newspaper of the island.

During the day, children participated

in UNAWE workshops at the school.

They played, laughed and sang their

way to an elementary understanding

of the earth, the moon and the solar

system. That night, some of the

schools senior students (9 & 10 years

of age) returned to the school for a very special Eclipse Star-b-q.

The Bermudian Astronomical Association will be forming a National Action

Committee that will coordinate the development of UNAWE Bermuda.

UNAWE Netherlands

UNAWE Bermuda


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CHILE

UNAWE Chile is based in Santiago and works

closely with the Universidad Metropolitana de

Ciencias de la Educación, where research is

being carried out on children’s and teachers’

“cosmovision” or understanding of the universe

and our place in it.

In addition to this, ESO Chile organises events

and celebrations and publishes material about

astronomy that is distributed throughout the

country. These materials are produced in

numbers of the order of 10,000.

COLOMBIA

It is estimated that about 3.6 million

children between 4 and 10 years of

age in Colombia are

underprivileged. UNAWE Colombia is

supported by government social

programmes (e.g. orphanages for

street children), and astronomy

networks. Its permanent

headquarters are located at

MALOKA (http://www.maloka.org/),

the largest science museum in South

America.

UNAWE Colombia has been active

for a year and a half. It develops materials, activities and offers teacher training

workshops at the science museum. Pilot activities have been carried out in urban and

rural areas reaching several hundred children. Following this experience, three main

directions of implementation have been chosen to maximise the impact and the

reach of the programme: Radio programmes, Travelling suitcases (the Universe in a

Box) and an Astronomy Circus (Performance based).

GERMANY

UNAWE Germany has recently formed a

National Action Committee composed of

members of the IYA1 Germany national

working group, planetariums, astronomy

education organisations and universities.

Although the formal structure is recent,

UNAWE activities have been used and tested

in a number of settings, particularly in

kindergartens located in areas with a high

proportion of immigrant families. UNAWE

Germany emphasizes world citizenship. Several hundred children and tens of

teachers have already been exposed to UNAWE in Germany.

1 IYA: The International Year Of Astronomy 2009

ESO/UNAWE Chile

UNAWE Colombia

UNAWE Germany


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INDIA

UNAWE collaborates with the Tamil

Nadu Science Forum

(http://www.tnsf.in/) and Pratham

(http://www.pratham.org/). These

organisations reach over 150,000

children in the UNAWE age range,

directly at any given time. UNAWE

India is growing as a component of

the national network of science

popularisation organisations.

UNAWE is included in activities

ranging from providing education for

school drop-outs and working

children, to literacy campaigns and women’s empowerment campaigns.

The worldwide UNAWE community benefits greatly from the Indian members’

experience. The challenges of multiple national languages, designing, producing and

distributing simple and effective materials cheaply, engaging communities as a

whole and working both within and out of formal education are relevant not only to

India, but to every UNAWE partner country.

INDONESIA

UNAWE Indonesia is based at the Institute of

Technology of Bandung. The implementers

are mainly staff, undergraduate and

graduate students from the institute. UNAWE

is essentially a travelling caravan.

In December 2007 a Trans-Java star party

was organised, reaching over 1500 children

in rural village and refugee camps. See this

website for an account of the adventure:

http://nggieng.wordpress.com/2008/01/06/the-

pilot-project-of-unawe-indonesia/

IRELAND

On his own initiative, Sean McCabe has presented fun

astronomy exposure lessons in a small number of

primary schools in the Dublin area. About 50 pupils

have so far engaged in these UNAWE activities.

Recently, the Irish IYA task group has expressed an

interest in setting up UNAWE Ireland formally, in the

hope of delivering the programme widely across the

country.

ITALY

UNAWE collaborates with Arcetri Observatory

Outreach, a programme that develops activities,

materials and events around multicultural astronomy.

UNAWE India

UNAWE Indonesia

UNAWE Ireland


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They have engaged with the local Chinese/Italian immigrant community

incorporating aspects of both Chinese and African astronomical folklore into

storytelling and performances. Arcetri also focuses on novel means of transmitting

astronomical knowledge based on these cultures, e.g. Chinese shadow puppetry.

The materials and activities were presented and made available for two weeks at a

large national science festival in Genoa in 2007, an event experienced by tens of

thousands of children.

NETHERLANDS

The Ministry of Education, Culture and

Science of the Netherlands has provided

funding for the UNAWE International Office

which is based at Leiden Observatory until

the end of 2009.

The first teacher training day of UNAWE

Netherlands took place on February 28,

2008. It was advertised through a primary

school network programme (VTB). The initial

offer of 35 places was quickly filled, so

further funding was raised to enable UNAWE

to offer places to 60 participants. The day

was sponsored by the University of Leiden

and VTB.

SOUTH AFRICA

UNAWE is the provision made for young

children in South Africa’s continuous efforts to

build astronomy in Africa.

A number of international activities have

taken place in South Africa, e.g. skypecasts

celebrating astronomical events. During

these events, children share experiences

over the Internet other children in different

parts of the world (so far Europe, India,

Bermuda, South America).

This world citizenship exercise exposes

children to different cultures, accents, habits,

appearances, and worldviews. These

activities have already reached between

several hundred to a thousand children in

South Africa, and similar numbers of children

abroad.

South Africa’s leadership in Africa has

already led to UNAWE events and visits

reaching neighbouring countries (Swaziland,

Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, etc.) and

UNAWE participation from Kenya.

UNAWE Netherlands

UNAWE South Africa

UNAWE Kenya


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SPAIN

UNAWE Spain has organised several teacher

training programmes about astronomy for

primary school teachers and is producing a

large number of materials and activities at a

sustained rate. There are about 100 activities

already.

UNAWE Spain is supported by the Consejo

Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas. Efforts

are being made by Spain to coordinate and

interface between Spain and other Spanish-

speaking countries in Latin America.

Spain has also produced the first UNAWE Children’s book A professionally designed

website with resources in Spanish is currently under development.

TUNISIA

UNAWE has been running in Tunisia for

over 2 years. It is based in the Science City

Museum in Tunis and reaches out to

isolated communities throughout the

country via a travelling science caravan

that brings astronomy activities to the very

young. This exciting, annual visit of the

Astro-Bus is prepared and followed-up on

locally by children’s clubs, a nationwide

governmental service for children outside

of schools hours. The Science City also

offers three daily astronomy workshops for

young children. They are open and freely

available to all.

UNAWE Tunisia also offers teacher training programmes in astronomy for primary and

pre-primary school teachers, kindergartens and children’s clubs animators twice a

year. They organize monthly astronomy evenings for the very young, their families

and teachers, and a variety of other celebrations throughout the year (eclipses,

conjunctions, etc.).

UNAWE Tunisia is supported by the Science City

and the Ministries of Education and Family

Affairs of Tunisia. Tunisia produces a stream of

materials in French and Arabic, including

activities, tools, games and even cartoons and

plays. The number of teachers trained to carry

out UNAWE activities lies in the 100s and the

number of children that have been reached by

UNAWE Tunisia is of the order of 10,000.

UNAWE Spain

UNAWE Tunisia

UNAWE Tunisia


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UNITED KINGDOM

The British UNAWE efforts are based at

SETpoint Greater Manchester. The

activities for primary school pupils are

UNAWE activities. A series of teacher

training events continued professional

development courses and children’s

activities are planned to take place

during IYA.

The current programme consists of:

- Hands-on learning activities

- Games and Songs

- Live Internet e-Learning exchanges

and international class twinning

- Resources and Multimedia Teaching Materials

- Teacher Training

Funding has been sought to establish the programme more formally in the education

support structure (regional science resource centres and SETpoints) but the target

age of the funding body is unfortunately older than the 4-10 year olds UNAWE aims to

reach.

VENEZUELA

UNAWE Venezuela started over 2 years

ago. Based at the Centro de

Investigaciones de Astronomía, the

astronomical research facility in Meridá,

UNAWE Venezuela collaborates with

the National Commission for UNESCO,

the Venezuelan UNESCO ASP-Net

schools network, various cultural

heritage and multicultural education

organisations and is supported by the

ministries of Science and Education.

UNAWE Venezuela organises activities

around astronomical events and

celebrations and offers regular trainer

programmes for UNAWE regional coordinators from the whole country. They then

return to their regions where they train teachers, who themselves implement UNAWE

activities in their kindergartens and primary schools. It is estimated that the number of

teachers and children reached by UNAWE Venezuela are of the order of thousands

and tens of thousands since the beginning of the programme.

UNAWE United Kingdom

UNAWE Venezuela

unawe newsletter, march 2008

Documents

unawe foundation

unawe project

chile unawe chile

unawe workshops

unawe website

development of unawe

universe awareness skypecast

international workshop