ASTRO-Chile News
Student Videoconference Has Far-Reaching Results Across the Equator
A special student-to-student videoconference was held at the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) on May 12, 2006. The videoconference was a two-way conference that made use of the internet to view participants at two locations, Tucson, Arizona and La Serena, Chile, headquarters for NOAO North and South. There were a half of a dozen schools with a couple hundred students in Chile who participated in a remote sensing activity over the months of February, March and April. 50 of those students were in attendance in La Serena on May 12. There have been 5 teachers with almost as many students who participated in the activity from Tucson.
Even half a world apart and across people of different languages and cultures, the most effective ways to teach concepts in science is hands-on with discussion following. Since the Fall of 2002, NOAO North in Tucson & NOAO South in Chile have held videoconference workshops for teachers and for students in Tucson, AZ, and La Serena, Chile. The teachers and students exchanged methods and ideas about how to teach and learn about light and color, various physics activities, light pollution monitoring, lunar eclipse activities and now a remote sensing activity. The workshops are held in Spanish and English and are facilitated by the bilingual science teachers from the Tucson area and the teachers from Chile.
