Paper (*cross-listing*): physics/0508146
Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 20:03:48 GMT (595kb)

Title: Bringing Science into Schools through Astronomy. Project ASTRO, Tucson

Authors: Caroline Barban (1) and Herve Dole (2) ((1) IvS, KU Leuven. (2) IAS,
Orsay)

Comments: 4 pages, 5 images, proceedings of the JENAM 2005 (Liege) parallel
session on education. Paper also available in
http://lully.as.arizona.edu/~hdole/vulgarisation/ecoles

Subj-class: Physics Education
\\
We report our experience in bringing science into US and French classrooms.
We participated in the US scientific educational program Project ASTRO. It is
based on a partnership between a school teacher and an astronomer. They
together design and realize simple and interesting scientific activities for
the children to learn and enjoy science. We present four hands-on activities we
realized in a 4th-grade class (10 yr-old kids) in Tucson (USA) in 2002-2003.
Among the covered topics were: the Solar System, the Sun (helioseismology) and
the Galaxies. We also present a similar experience done in two classrooms in
2005, in Chatenay-Malabry (France) in partnership with an amateur astronomy
association (Aphelie). This is a pleasant and rewarding activity, extremely
well appreciated by the children and the school teachers. It furthermore
promotes already at a young age the excitement of science, and provides
concrete examples of the scientific methodology.

\\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/physics/0508146 , 595kb)