Solar system

Kick-off meeting for SpaceGuardians held in Edinburgh

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The kick-off meeting of this project was held in Edinburgh on 10th November 2017 and hosted by CIVIC Computing who lead the project. Representatives from all 5 partner organisations attended the meeting to plan the activities for the next six months of the project. These partners include:

Background

Astronomy has a strong motivational nature that promotes science literacy and may encourage students to pursue future careers in STEM.  However, with few exceptions in Europe, Astronomy education is mainly rooted into secondary school curricula, less into primary school, while children at pre-school have usually little or no contact with Astronomy.

Aims & benefits

The project uses an innovative ICT based approach – an interactive eBook – for the learning of Astronomy concepts and competences of young children. The interactive eBook will be freely available online for anyone to use, and in 4 languages (English, French, Greek and Portuguese). Moreover, the fact that it is a digital resource makes it also easier to translate it into other languages in the future, widening its potential use even further.

The innovative character lies in a set of features, including:

  • an interactive storyline in which readers actively participate in
  • exercises and mini-games that deliver learning contents and help consolidate knowledge
  • easy accessibility for children with mild learning difficulties and impairments

If you are a teacher or parent and are interested in getting involved in our research, please get in touch.