CoAstro had the honor of being invited as a speaker at the “Annual Meeting of the European Astronomical Society”.

This year, the event took place from June 23rd to 27th at University College Cork, in Ireland.

CoAstro took part in the panel “Reimagining Astronomy Education in Europe“,  which aimed to provide an opportunity to reflect on the current state of astronomy education across Europe and explore strategies for the future. The session brought together experts and educators to examine the challenges and opportunities facing astronomy education today.

The goal was to assess how astronomy is taught at different educational levels, discuss the role of international collaborations, and identify ways to strengthen and expand astronomy education in primary and secondary schools. t was also a great opportunity to share innovative educational strategies.

On May 10th, CoAstro put in a day’s work… and what a journey it was!
Not in the fields, nor with manual labor — this time, the work was online.

That day, CoAstro was featured at the “4th Science Communication Journeys“, organized by the students and faculty of the Master’s in Science Communication at the University of Minho, during the Citizen Science Showcase, which began at 2:45 PM.

The session explored examples, opportunities, and challenges arising from the use of new technologies to engage the public in the scientific process.

In CoAstro’s case, the invitation aimed to understand how astronomy, as a scientific field, benefits from public collaboration through digital platforms — and what impacts (both positive and negative) have been observed in the relationship between digital participation in the project and scientific literacy among school audiences.

On March 25th, between 6:00 PM and 9:00 PM, CoAstro was… raffled off!

Well, not literally. On that day, CoAstro was one of the featured projects at a training event organized by the “Portuguese Society of Educational Sciences” (SPCE), cleverly named RIFA (raffled in Portuguese) — standing for Reflection, Investigation, Training, Action, Sustainability (in Portuguese: Reflexão, Investigação, Formação, Ação, Sustentáveis).

Under the theme “Open Science and Opportunities for Education”, this Short-Term Training Action (ACD), officially recognized for teachers’ career progression, brought together a panel of four speakers. The materials they presented — including those from CoAstro — can be found HERE.

In 2025, CoAstro turns out into a book section in the “Ciência Cidadã na Educação em Ciências“, formally presented on 29 January.

This work, by Professora Carla Morais, makes possible, in the author’s words, to ‘present a characterisation of citizen science and reflect on its potential and challenges for Science Education in formal and non-formal contexts’.

CoAstro is so well that portrayed in the book: many thanks for this to Professora Carla Morais.

Almost three decades since the creation of Ciência Viva (CV), several studies, scientific articles, dissertations and theses have been published that contain essential elements for reflection on CV’s activity and its impact on Portuguese society.

In December 2024, the  Agência Nacional Ciência Viva organised the first meeting between the authors of these academic works, entitled ‘The Science of Ciência Viva’.

Obviously CoAstro couldn’t miss it: it was part of Session 4 – Citizen science and public participation. This intervention can be seen at 4:25:24 of the video available HERE. In the same video, at 10:46, there was another intervention by the Condo Administrator, on the Educational Programme of the Porto Planetarium.

When CoAstro was born (video summary here) in 2018 – an award-winning project that continues to make headlines – two major phases took shape: i) teachers joined research teams (researchers took the lead role and teachers were research partners); ii) the Porto Planetarium – Ciência Viva Center (PP-CCV) and the researchers carried out activities in schools (teachers took the lead role – integrating astronomy into their daily practices – and the PP-CCV/researchers, from the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences – University of Porto, were educational partners).

In 2023, this last phase was baptised ‘Con(s)ciência – a scientific condo’. The main goal was to reach audiences who were far from science (not just astronomy but using it as a gateway science to other sciences), not by choice, but because they didn’t have the opportunity to contact with it and therefore didn’t really know it.

To this end, we began our work by carrying out an analysis, of several indicators, that allowed us to identify the Portuguese municipalities (pp. 99-103) with low spontaneous engagement with astronomy.

In November and December of 2024, we are ready for the next step: to take action in these municipalities.

In November and December 2024, we were able to intervene in the first two municipalities: Boticas and Ribeira de Pena. The result: extraordinary!

On 10 May 2024, at 10:00 a.m., CoAstro was present at  “Painel de Comunicações 7 – Instrumentos e iniciativas” – of the Congresso Anual de Comunicação de Ciência SciComPt.

This was the baptismal moment for ‘Con(s)ciência – a scientific condominium’. In fact, since its conception in 2018, CoAstro has been structured in two main stages: the participation of teachers in astrophysics research and the promotion of science education and science communication activities (for teachers, students and other members of the schoolcommunity). It is precisely this last stage that, from that day on, has been called ‘Con(s)ciência – a scientific condominium’.

However, the reason for attending SciComPT was different: to present a mapping study (pp. 99 to 103) of municipalities that, not by choice, but due to failures in democratising access to science, have less spontaneous engagmentwith science. In addition, the intervention model to be implemented in November and December 2024 in the first two municipalities was shared: Boticas and Ribeira de Pena.

The Learning Planet Festival brings us together in the name of education and those committed to its transformation. In 2024 it had hundreds of onsite and online events in the week surrounding International Day of Education (January 24th).

To the panel – “In what way does citizen science transform education” – the European Citizen Science Academy, invited CoAstro´s Condo Administrator, to speak.

This is one more recognition of the work that CoAstro’s teachers have been doing on a completely voluntary and altruistic basis, since 2018.

 

The global Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) is a joint partnership between the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and the South African National Research Foundation (NRF). The mission of the OAD is to further the use of astronomy, in all its aspects, as a tool for development. This development in the sence of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

One of the primary ways the OAD implements its mission is through the Call for Proposals

In 2023, CoAstro submitted its application. As a result, received a Letter of Endorsement, which you can read HERE.

So, from this year on, we can say that CoAstro has the IAU/OAD Endorsement!

This is not only prestigious because of the nature of the IAU/OAD, but also because CoAstro has, in this context, competed with projects from developing countries (and therefore, in this respect, with an advantage in its applications). This is therefore symptomatic of CoAstro’s value in democratising access to science: making science available to those who, not by choice, but through lack of opportunity, don’t have access to it.

Thanks to everyone who enabled CoAstro to reach this level.