EU project gets schoolchildren gazing at the stars
EU-Hou, an EU-funded project, has developed a supernova observation tool for schoolchildren. The aim is to get young people interested in science through hands-on classroom activities on astronomy. The programme comprises an internet portal through which schoolchildren and teachers the world over can observe the stars and share data on what they have seen. The portal makes use of a European and worldwide network of automatic telescopes, and specially designed webcam systems and radio telescopes. Integrated into the platform is a set of educational activities which are aimed at increasing teachers' and pupils' understanding of the cosmos. Activities include measuring distances in the Universe, stellar structure and evolution, and the Doppler Effect studied with optical and radio spectroscopy. A total of 100 schoolchildren, teachers and scientists from Poland, the UK, Ireland, Portugal, the US and China have registered on the portal since the programme started in 2004. In that time, they have collected data on some 30 supernova observations. 'We wondered whether our idea would be well accepted and whether we would be able to create a society of schoolchildren and teachers from different countries who will jointly observe supernovae. It turned out to be possible. The Portal of Supernovae works perfectly,' says Dr Lech Mankiewicz from the Centre of Theoretical Physics at the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Polish coordinator of EU-HOU. According to Dr Mankiewicz, the portal is the first system of its kind. 'The solutions we have applied have been used previously - academically and commercially - but nobody has ever used them in educational astronomy.' With the initial success of the portal, project partners hope to expand the idea further. 'We have ideas on how to develop our platform. In future we want to create other systems e.g. to observe variable stars,' says Dr Mankiewicz.
Countries
Poland