Last Friday, the international UNAWE Office organised the closing event for the project Universe in the Classroom at primary school De Akkers in Rotterdam. Children from three classes showcased projects that they had worked on during the previous few months. In between, they enjoyed the wonderful projections of the Universe inside an inflatable planetarium provided by NOVA. Astronomy professor and UNAWE founder George Miley opened the event with a talk about the size and beauty of the Universe. At the end of the afternoon, he handed out an astronomy certificate for every child that attended. Last but not least the children were given special “rocket” ice creams to celebrate the successful completion of the project!
For Universe in the Classroom, 3 astronomy students from Leiden University paired up with 3 trainee teachers from Hogeschool Inholland Rotterdam in a project designed to introduce the Universe to children in three primary schools in the second-to-largest city in the Netherlands. Each student pair developed educational astronomy materials and gave their own classes. In this scheme not only did the children learn about astronomy, but both students within a pair learned from each other. The trainee teachers learned about astronomy and science in general, and the astronomy students gained experience in how to communicate science to young children and explain difficult concepts in simple terms. In addition to the classes, each school was visited by NOVA’s inflatable planetarium.
Of the three participating schools, De Akkers was the one that hosted the closing event. At this school, Lisa Pothoven and Songül Guldal set up a lesson series on a journey through the Universe; from nothing to something. Afterwards, all the children made a craftwork, a poem or a poster based on what they had learned. During the closing event they showed these to an interested crowd of parents, teachers, UNAWE coordinators and other students participating in the project.
The six students that worked hard to make this project work, are Irene Haasnoot, Vivienne Kolkman, Lisa Pothoven, Songül Guldal, Wijnanda Brugman and Esther van Eijl. They teached on primary schools De Akkers, Pierre Bayle and De Schakel.
Universe in the Classroom was financed with grants from the Gratama foundation, Leids Universiteits Fonds, Leiden Observatory and the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA)
For more pictures, click here.
Share:
