Teaching Astronomy With the GoChile Project

Title: 
Teaching Astronomy With the GoChile Project

Presenter:
Jure Japelj (Center for Astrophysics and Cosmology, University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia)

Collaborators:
Andreja Gomboc (Center for Astrophysics and Cosmology, University of Nova Gorica, Slovenia)

This was a poster presented at the 5th Shaw-IAU Workshop on Astronomy for Education, organised by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE, http//astro4edu.org).

University of Nova Gorica (Slovenia) and astronomical magazine Spika run the GoChile project, which uses two small telescopes at the El Sauce Observatory in Chile. The two remotely operated telescopes are primarily intended for teaching—significant telescope time is reserved for secondary school students interested in astronomy. Through the project the students gain experience in observations and get introduced to the process of scientific research. I will present our activities in the past two years: remote teaching, mentoring of research projects and the organization of two summer schools. Interestingly, there has been a great interest in the telescope among girls, which was particularly evident in the summer schools, where more than half of the registrants and participants were girls.

About the 5th Shaw-IAU Workshop on Astronomy for Education:
This year’s Shaw-IAU Workshop on Astronomy for Education focuses on two themes: one special practical astronomy education topic and one scientific topic. The special topic is astronomy education outside the classroom, looking at how astronomy can be taught in a diverse range of environments such as science centers, planetaria and youth clubs. The scientific topic is planetary atmospheres, both in the solar system and exoplanets as well as our own Earth. The workshop was organised by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (http://astro4edu.org). More details can be found on: https://astro4edu.org/shaw-iau/5th-shaw-iau-workshop/schedule/

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