ASTRO-Chile
Questions?
Contact the staff of ASTRO-Chile:
Connie Walker, Tucson Site Director
520-318-8535, cwalker@noao.edu
Kathie Coil, Public Affairs Program Coordinator
520-318-8230, kcoil@noao.edu
FAX: 520-318-8451
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.
more...
ASTRO-Chile News
The Sky is the Limit
An International Videoconference on Light Pollution Surveys across Hemispheres
By Thea Canizo with Connie Walker
TUSD middle and high school students participated in a videoconference with students, teachers, and astronomers from La Serena, Chile on Astronomy Day, Saturday, April 16. Students and teachers in both countries conducted light pollution studies by observing the constellation Orion during the first week of March and April.
Download the Orion Light Pollution Activity [pdf]
They shared their findings through powerpoint presentations, maps, posters and reports.
more...
ASTRO-Chile News
Light Pollution & Project ASTRO-Chile
In October 2002, NOAO launched innovative efforts to realize light pollution education on two continents through a new program dubbed “ASTRO-Chile”. These efforts were aided by Internet 2-based videoconferencing between NOAO North and South. Since then, NOAO has co-sponsored six teacher professional development videoconference workshops linking teachers in Tucson, AZ, and La Serena, Chile. Each videoconference has been conducted for the most part in Spanish. In the first videoconference the teachers exchanged methods and ideas about how to explain and demonstrate the nature of light and color to students of various ages. Four bilingual science teachers from the Tucson area discussed pedagogical approaches with their teaching counterparts in Chile. The workshops included demonstrations, project presentations, and the construction and calibration of spectroscopes. The Chilean teachers used these spectroscopes to examine a number of light sources in their town and presented their findings at the second workshop.
more...
ASTRO-Chile News
Lunar Eclipse in Chile
Through support of a local network of schools, called Red de Estudiantes de La Serena or “RedLaSer” in La Serana, Chile, a group of students, teachers, parents and astronomers unleashed modern technology on a geometrical method developed by the ancient Greeks for determining the distances and sizes of the Sun and Moon. The observing program was very refined. It took a lot of considerable preparation and coordination. It included measurements a week in advance of the Sun-Moon angular separation, and, on the night of the lunar eclipse, observations of the eclipse with telescopes and Webcam, photography, binoculars, and naked eye by four teams of students. Each team applied the same reduction method to their dataset, and then they intercompared techniques.
more...
ASTRO-Chile News
ASTRO-Chile Update
After a couple of months of curriculum planning and testing, the ASTRO-Chile team from Tucson held a videoconference with their Chilean counterparts on April 6 to report student results from a new 4 th-12th grade light pollution study of the night sky toward Orion. The curriculum aligns with the efforts of our Chilean counterparts in the program and was designed to provide a similar platform for a cross-cultural exchange.
more...
ASTRO-Chile News
About ASTRO-Chile
Even half a world apart and across people of different languages and cultures, the most effective ways to teach concepts in astronomy can be a lively topic for discussion. During Fall 2002, NOAO North & South jointly sponsored a “proof-of-concept” videoconference workshop for teachers in Tucson, AZ, and La Serena, Chile. The teachers exchanged methods and ideas about how to explain and demonstrate the nature of light and color to students of various ages. The entire workshop was held in Spanish facilitated by three bilingual teachers from the Tucson area.
more...
