3. Main outreach activities
• Day- and night-time
visits
• Lectures at the
Planetarium
• Open days and special
events
• Education activities
(teachers students,
parents )
• Special projects
4. Amici Telescope
(1866 – 37 cm)
Fully restored and
(almost) perfectly
working, it is the
main attraction for
people visiting the
Observatory
5. On a clear night, it can show the
craters of the moon, the rings of
Saturn, the moons of Jupiter, the Orion
nebula, passing comets and much
more…
6. In the Observatory premises there’s also
there’s
a recently built open sky theatre
And a solar system
scale model
8. The program includes lectures for
schools (Monday through Friday) and
the general public (Thursday night;
Sunday afternoon)
9. Main activities
• Day- and night-time
visits
• Lectures at the
Planetarium
• Special events and
open days (1000/y)
10. Special events: The Annual Science
Festival in Genoa (2007, 2008, 2009);
Festival della Creatività, in Florence;
Mondadori Junior festival in Verona
11. Open days
Each year the Arcetri Observatory
opens its gates to ~ 500 children (and
~ 1000 parents), an event called
“Bambineide” ( = A Children’s Epic)
12. The “Bambineide” exploits the fascination
of astronomy to attract primary-school
children in a scientific research institution,
where they can familiarize with
astronomical instrumentation, ask
questions to professional astronomers …
13. … and take part in simple scientific
experiments with sound, air and light,
promoting a hands-on approach to
science
15. During the visit, children can partake in
a show inside a Starlab planetarium,
observe the night sky and listen to
stories about the constellations and
their mythology
16. Mainactivities
• Day- and night-time
visits
• Lecturesat the
Planetarium
• Open days and
specialevents
• Education activities
(teachers students,
parents )
17. Education, mainly addressed to primary schools
• Courses and round tables on astronomy
education for teachers (in the framework of
Pianeta Galileo programme )
• Activities for students and educational
projects (Cieli di Rodari, etc)
• Courses for parents
• Professional
astronomer
conferences and ‘ask to
an astronomer’ events
in the schools
19. Main activities
• Day- and night-time
visits (7000 /y)
• Lectures at the
Planetarium (13000/y)
• Open days and special
events (1000/y)
• Education (teachers
students, parents )
• Special projects
20. Special projects:The Sky over China, a
multicultural experience (2005)
sponsored by the International Universe
Awareness program
21. The idea came firts of all from the consideration that
in our country there’s a high percentage of
foreigners, mainly distributed in suburban
disadvantaged areas Foreign students (%) Primary school 2008/2009
Since the sky and its
democratic principles
associate people from all
over the world, we expose
primary and nursery school
children to the fascination
of the night sky as seen in
different parts of our
planet, in order to
stimulate a global
citizenship feeling
22. The idea: to overcome
language barriers using
pictorial and theatrical
expression.
Use astronomy and the
sky mithology as a bridge
between different
cultures
[The star Vega as the chinese Weaving
Princess falling in love with Altair, the
Imperial Herdsman]
23. Relying on the belief that every child has got his own
favourite language to communicate and that the
variety of languages helps to understand the world,
we generally organize the work in three stages:
1. a visit to the mobile
planetarium of our
observatory, where we
show the sky as seen
from Italy, as well as
from the part of the
world under
consideration.
24. 2. discussions with the
teachers and children with
the idea of collecting and
rediscovering the myths and
legends which the families
relate to their children;
science experiments in the
classroom; meet the
astronomer
25. 3. finally the children plan
their own planetarium
show which they
accompany with drawing,
stories and sound effects
and different techniques
such as shadows puppet
theatre
27. Our plan is to keep going with the «Skies of the
world», working with children especially in
disadvantaged communities and areas, all over
the country
T1 – Training primary school teachers all over the
country to provide inspiring lessons to young children,
using the «Skies of the world» method
28. • Pilot schools for experimenting and testing educational
materials, methodologies, languages with children
AND teachers
• training courses for teachers
(both on the ‘skies of the world’ experience and resources
and on translated/adapted ones).
Declared in the project’s DoW:
75+100 teachers
1500+2000 children (20 x teacher)
AA 2010-2011
• Montagnola : 10 class-groups x 25 students = 20
teachers + 250 students,
• Zafferana Etnea April 11th – 15th children book
festival
• Contacts in progress: Reggio Emilia, Ferrara, Pistoia,
Firenze
29. T1: Train and empower primary school teachers in
each partner country to provide inspiring lessons to
young children, involving the Universe and space.
T2: Develop, translate and disseminate hands-on and
inquiry-base educational resources in each of the
partner countries, emphasising European and South
African science and technology.
T4: Expose substantial numbers of young children in
Italy to awareness of the Universe, emphasizing
astronomy and space sciences for developing
perspective and an appreciation of the rational
method.
WP5 – TEACHER TRAINING
WP7 - RESOURCES
30. • T3: Provide a network for the exchange of expertise and
material between educators of young children in EU
member states, Associated Countries and International
Cooperation Partner Countries.
• T5: Foster interaction and exchange of best practice
between professional scientists and primary level
educators.
www.arcetri.astro.it/cielidelmondo/
Teachers training all
over the country &
participation in events
+ Italian web site
WP6
NATIONAL
COMMUNICATION
