Universe Awareness for Young Children – Newsletter
March 2008
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.
UNAWE Bermuda
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.
UNAWE International
A report will be made available on the UNAWE website in the next few months.
http://unawe.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=214&Itemid=106 http://www.lorentzcenter.nl/lc/web/2008/296/info.php3?wsid=296
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Universe Awareness for Young Children – Newsletter
March 2008
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. UNAWE Netherlands
http://unawe.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=224&Itemid=113 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 UNAWE Bermuda 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.
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Universe Awareness for Young Children – Newsletter
March 2008
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.
ESO/UNAWE Chile
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
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 UNAWE Germany 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.
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IYA: The International Year Of Astronomy 2009
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Universe Awareness for Young Children – Newsletter
March 2008
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. UNAWE India
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/thepilot-project-of-unawe-indonesia/
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 Ireland
UNAWE collaborates with Arcetri Observatory Outreach, a programme that develops activities, materials and events around multicultural astronomy.
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Universe Awareness for Young Children – Newsletter
March 2008
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.
UNAWE Netherlands
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 UNAWE South Africa 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 Kenya
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Universe Awareness for Young Children – Newsletter
March 2008
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
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 Spanishspeaking 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
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
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.
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Universe Awareness for Young Children – Newsletter
March 2008
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 UNAWE United Kingdom - 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 Venezuela
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