Author: coastro

One of CoAstro’s astronomers – Sérgio Sousa – has been confirmed as one of the best… in the world!

Who says so is the latest edition of the rankings Research.com, which annually rank the world’s best and most influential scientists in their respective fields.

As University of Porto says (translation of our own): “among the analysis criteria used to rank researchers are the number of citations and the D-Index (Discipline H-index), a measure that estimates the degree of dependence between authors and their research environment throughout their history of scientific publications. The profile of each scientist also takes into account the number of publications and a list of their awards and achievements”.

A pride, not only for CoAstro, but also a national pride!

That CoAstro is a “best practice”, we already knew! However, recently, it has again been confirmed as a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) best practice.

Indedd, it was invited to attend (and to present itself) at the Scientix 2023 National Conference. The Conference took place last March 11th, and was organised by the Direção-Geral de Educação, within the scope of the Scientix project.

Scientix is coordinated by the European Schoolnet: a consortium of 34 Education Ministers, the European Commission, universities and companies.

Scientix’s mission is to improve science education by promoting and supporting STEM collaboration between teachers, researchers, policy makers and other STEM professionals.

CoAstro’s presentation can be seen HERE (aos 6:22:43) and its poster is available HERE.

One of the novelties of this presentation was the establishment of what it will be needed for CoAstro to linger: a future best practice, or a best practice with a future?

CoAstro was presented, by  one of the portuguese teacheres selected for the Climate Education Summer University 2022 (CESU).

This happened because of CoAstro’s close relationship with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Indeed, CoAstro reduces territorial inequalities (SDG 10), because it targets students and teachers of Portuguese regions, with lower spontaneous engagement with science. This also ensures inclusive and equitable quality education, leading to relevant and effective learning outcomes (SDG 4.1.) and including people with disabilities and children in vulnerable situations (SDG 4.5). CoAstroCoAstro ensures public access to information (SDG 16.10).

This summer school has selected 30 European teachers, preparing them to address the topic of climate change and climate modeling. It is part of the project Earth system models for the future 2025 (ESM2025), unded by the European Union under the program Horizon 2020.

CESU took place from July 18 to 22 at Météo-France (the French Metereology Institute), in the city of Toulouse.

CoAstro was one of the projects selected to be presented at the 4th Shaw-IAU Workshop on Astronomy for Education.

This is the most important meeting promoted by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education: the International Astronomical Union’s office dedicated to astronomy for primary and secondary education.

CoAstro was integrated in the parallel session “Astronomy education research on the role of astronomy in schools”. Due to the global scale of the event, the session was held twice, in order to cover several time zones.

The presented work can be read at the workshop’s Proceddings book (pages 64-67).

In September, CoAstro went back to school: we physically returned to schools.

The CoAstrian teachers took the summer break to structure what is now coming: a plan to recover… the pleasure of being together again!

So teachers, students, astronomers and science communicators will cross paths again in the space… of the school!

In May 2022 the PhD Program in Science Teaching and Dissemination was evaluated by A3ES. In this process CoAstro was invited to integrate two evaluation panels. One of them was attended by the “Condo Administrator”  and the other by the teacher Maria Julieta Ferreira.

In these panels CoAstro was asked for its testimony based on the interaction it had with the study cycle under evaluation.

Obviously, such an invitation is a great pride for the entire CoAstro and the recognition of the work already done.

The CoAstro structuring and implementation model was presented in Santiago de Compostela – 
MW-Gaia WG5 workshop Breaking Barriers: Inspiring the Next Generation. This workshop aims to bring together the astronomical community and get inspiration on how data from the Gaia mission is used in different areas of astronomy.

This presentation had the particularity of CoAstro being defended by one of the science communicators involved in the project: Elsa Moreira. She represented, in an extraordinary way, the entire Condo.

The abstract of her presentation can be seen in the  “Programme” section of the workshop website.

Is citizen science merely an investigative technique? Or is it a mechanism for Open Science? Or a method for teaching and disseminating science? And what if the answer is: all of it… through school!

In a special dossier on “science and technology communication” a new CoAstro publication reveals how citizen science can be enhanced, without self funding or self human resources, reaching, with lasting effects, audiences that would otherwise not spontaneously engage with science – “Citizen Science through school: the importance of interpersonal relationships“.

The National Citizen Science Meeting 2021 took place on the 25th and 26th of November. It, focused on sharing and discussing challenges and good practices of citizen science, intended,  at the same time to strengthen the Portuguese Citizen Science Network – CC.pt.

CoAstro, in the program as a “Long oral presentation“, in the panel “Education, Society and Citizenship”, was present in a papper entitled “Citizen Science in school context: from an investigative technique to a method for science teaching and communicating – a national example”.

May the Net(work) be with us!