Aggiornato il 28 Novembre 2024
On March 16, 2022, Let’s light up the skies of the world took place in the Italian Pavillion of the 2020 EXPO in Dubai. The event, organized by OAE Center Italy and INAF, was constituted by two different moments: a hands-on laboratory for the pupils of local schools, and a roundtable on the topic Astronomy for Teaching: from theory to practice, which took place both in person and in live streaming.
The team organizing the event was composed by Caterina Boccato, Stefano Sandrelli, Alessandra Zanazzi and Livia Giacomini, with the support of the staff of the Italian Pavillion, led by Lorenzo Micheli. The INAF team was also supported by Marcos Valdes, CEO of VIS (Virtual Immersions in Science), who, in the course of event, presented Moon Landing VR, a virtual-reality 360° video to live the Apollo 11 Moon landing.
In the teaching lab, called Let’s light up the skies of the world, about twenty girls from the GEMS Al Khaleej International School, an International school based in Dubai, lit up the stars with LEDs and paper circuits, inventing their own constellations and connecting them to the legends and myths of different cultures of the world. They were led, in addition to the INAF team, by two teachers – Ruba Tarabay, STEAM Coordinator and Responsible for junior secondary classes, and Mohammed Kheder, Astronomy teacher.
In this laboratory, we reason on the fact that constellations do not exist, because they are formed by stars which are not connected to each other – Alessandra Zanazzi says. However, constellations are important from the practical point of view, as a reference in order to measure both time and seasons. They also have an important cultural meaning, because all peoples of the world have always observed the sky and connected the dots of the stars to form drawings of what was important for their culture. In the laboratory, we started building a paper circuit, so as to light up a constellation made of LEDs, taking inspiration from a teaching proposal developed by the INAF Play Group. Then, based on the intercultural activities Cieli del mondo” [World Skies] who inspired several proposals of EduINAF, each participant was free to give vent to their own creativity, overlaying on “official” constellations, the ones coming from different cultural traditions, or of their own design. Here in Dubai, we saw dromedaries, butterflies, and desert oasis being drawn…
In the second part of the morning, a roundtable took place with Markus Poessel, Responsible for the IAU-OAE Office, Stefano Sandrelli and Sara Ricciardi of the OAE Center Italy, Hamid Al-Naimiy and Ilias Fernini of SAASST (Sharjah Academy for Astronomy, Space Sciences & Technology) and Pedro Russo of Leiden University/Ciàªncia Viva.
Stefano Sandrelli, Director of the new OAE Center Italy says: We are happy to be here today, because the theme of the Dubai EXPO is sustainability. The world can only be sustainable if it has at its heart a culture based on hospitality, on the mutual respect for differences and on true and profound dialogue. That is why the main issue of the roundtable is the codesign, which OAE Center Italy is carrying out with all the countries bordering the Mediterranean. In this project, each country proposes activities addressed to primary school pupils, which are later discussed and modified together. All this will result in a teacher training course which is going to be organized in the island of Lampedusa next summer.
Here is an account of the event, directly from the voices and the words of the protagonists:
Here is a photo gallery of the event:
Further information
The complete recording of the roundtable:
An Italian media review about this initiative:
09-03-2022 Announcement in EduINAF
11-03-2022: Press Release in Media INAF
11-03-2022: IAU Press Release
11-03-2022: Announcement on Innovitalia
12-03-2022: Announcement in the UAI website
14-03-2022 Announcement from ANSA
16-03-2022 Account in the ANSA website
16-03-2022 article in IlGiornaleDiplomatico
16-03-2022 The event in the website of Agenzia 9Colonne
17-03-2022: News report in MediaINAF
International and UAE media:
11-03-2022: Europlanet
17-03-2022 Mashair
17-03-2022 Emaratalyoum.com
17-03-2022 Hiamag
18-03-2022 UAENews24/7
18-03-2022 Alkhaleej
18-03-2022 Wam
20-03-2022 Article in the newspaper Al Khaleej (see below)
13-04-2022 Europlanet
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