Carme Jordi

Institute of Cosmos Sciences (ICCUB), Barcelona University, COST action MW-Gaia action Vice Chair

Gaia@Schools in the COST framework [pdf]

The Gaia mission is revolutionizing the picture and our understanding of the Milky Way, our home in the Universe. The COST Action MW-Gaia allows us to bring together the research, the teaching, and the science communication communities to share knowledge and tools and together make our classrooms dynamic and innovative by using Gaia mission and results as the driving motor of our teaching and communication.

Despina Hatzidimitriou

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, COST action MW-Gaia WG1 leader

The Milky Way Galaxy in the Gaia era [pdf]

Data from the ESA Gaia mission in synergy with large ground-based surveys have revolutionized our view of the Milky Way (MW) Galaxy and have advanced our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution in general. The Gaia eDR3 data that were released about 5 months ago contain information of unprecedented accuracy on proper motions and parallaxes for more than one billion of stars in the MW (along with flux information in different optical bands). These data allow us to build a three-dimensional map of our Galaxy, understand its structure and dynamics, and deduce its evolution. In this talk, I will present some highlights of what we have learned about our Galaxy in the Gaia era.

Stefan Jordan, Astronomical Computing Institute at the Center for Astronomy at Heidelberg University

Gaia outreach [pdf]

One of the main scientific goals of the ESA Gaia mission is to understand the evolution of our Milky Way and its vicinity. More than five papers are published every day based on Gaia’s catalogues. The production of these catalogues is performed by DPAC, the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium. Additionally, to the scientific data, DPAC and ESA also produce outreach material (news, articles, pictures, videos, and visualization software, etc.) to demonstrate the technique of Gaia and the impact that the mission has of on astronomy. Up to now only a limited amount of material is explicitly made for schools, a gap that that should be closed in the future.

Renate Hubele, House of Astronomy

The Milky Way Kit of SFB 881– a selection of teaching materials [pdf]

In order to support teachers in their search for suitable teaching materials explaining Astronomy in general and Milky Way related topics in particular to their students, we have designed a selection of materials of teaching resources about these topics. The contents are intended for middle and high school students and cover a wide range of topics, from basic spectroscopy to the life of stars and the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram. Most of the contents are intended to be used as workshops with a duration of one or two hours, including materials to be used by the students. The Milky Way Kit comes as a box that we distribute to interested teachers nationwide and is supposed to be accompanied by a comprehensive booklet soon. In my talk, I will present the idea and basic contents of the box and how this can be used by teachers to support their lessons.

Nicolas Bonne, Public Engagement and Outreach Fellow at the University of Portsmouth's Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation

The Tactile Universe

Astronomy is a topic that engages and inspires a wide range of audiences around the world, but blind and vision-impaired people can often find it difficult to engage with the subject due to its very visual nature. The Tactile Universe is a public engagement project based at the University of Portsmouth that is opening up current topics in astrophysics research to blind and vision-impaired people through accessible resources. Nic Bonne, a blind astronomer who currently leads the project, will discuss its main resource (3D printable tactile images of galaxies), what the project is doing to inspire young people with vision impairments, as well as outlining how the project has expanded across the UK and internationally through resource sharing and training workshops.

Alessandra Zanazzi, Arcetri observatory, INAF

An astronomy exhibition, inclusive also for blind and visually impaired people

The INAF Arcetri Astrophysical Observatory recently inaugurated a permanent exhibition that has been designed in order to be inclusive also for blind and visually impaired people. The project built on many previous activities at local, national, and international levels and on newly designed exhibits, like the touchable planetarium dome. The exhibits, designed and tested with blind people, also proved to be attractive and useful for the general public visiting the observatory