On 29 September 2017, Europe celebrated Researcher's Night. Members from SpaceGates of the University of Athens, Greece, had organised a workshop for kids using the Rosetta plush toy. Earlier this year, Stella Tsilia had won the Rosetta toy in the ‘Design A Rosetta Toy Activity Contest’.
With other members from SpaceGates, Stella was able to turn her idea into reality and carry out the educational activity ‘Build your own Rosetta’. This activity was awarded with the Rosetta plush toy at the ‘Design A Rosetta Toy Activity Contest’ back in May. As part of the prize, the activity will also appear on IAU astroEDU, the online database for peer-reviewed astronomy education activities.
The team engaged around 45 children with this astronomy activity: “Early in the evening, kids who had signed up for the ‘Build your own Rosetta’ workshop started to gather around. Together we learned more about Rosetta and its mission, meeting the Rosetta plush toy — which gives out the best hugs! The kids identified the basic parts of a spacecraft and then had the opportunity to build their own model, using simple everyday materials,” Stella explains.
'Build Your Own Rosetta' workshop at the European Researchers’ Night in Greece.
Another workshop called ‘Cooking a comet’ was held as well: “We used a recipe and simple ingredients to cook our own comet. Kids seemed pretty pleased!” Overall, hundreds of people passed by the team's table and more than 80 children were engaged with their workshops.
These workshops were organised by the SpaceGates public outreach team, as part of the European Researchers’ Night in Greece. SpaceGates is a public outreach team comprised of students of the Department of Physics, University of Athens, that is dedicated to the communication of space and astrophysics. Find out more on the SpaceGates Facebook page.
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