QueSERA Task3: Outreach for the general public

Astronomy has a powerful appeal that can be used to reach the general public and to make it aware of the excitement of science and its importance for society. Radio astronomy in particular has the advantage that the public easily visits the icons of its trade, the large radio telescopes, as they stand in readily accessible parts of the country. Many of the facilities in the RadioNet3 consortium have visitor centres, open to the general public. The RadioNet3 partners have a wide range of expertise in reaching the general public, although all of these generally aim at advertising the local accomplishments. This work-package will combine outreach effort of the European scale radio facilities. In addition, the activities can benefit already by simply using the expertise across the facilities and integrating these sometimes sub-critical individual efforts.
This work package is led by INAF and coordinated by the RadioNet3 office.


Meetings

DateNamePlaceParticipantsMinutes
29.04.2013 Task 3 - teleconference Task 3 Group Teleconference April 29, 2013
24.05.2013 Task 3 - teleconference Task 3 Group Teleconference May 24, 2013
27.06.2013 Task 3 - teleconference Task 3 Group Teleconference June 27, 2013
17.06.2013Astronomy Education & Public Outreach – An ASTRONET workshopHaus der Astronomie, Heidelberg, GermanyM.OrientiReport
12.02.2014 RadioNet3 - Outreach for the general publicMax Planck Institute for Radioastronomy - BonnTask 3 Group Workshop Feb 12, 2014
11.04.2014 Task 3 - teleconference Task 3 Group Teleconference April 11, 2014
09.12.2014 RN3 outreach II: status and futureYebes Observatory, Cerro de la Palera, YebesTask 3 Group |Workshop Dec 9, 2014
08.10.2015 RadioNet3 Outreach - FINAL meetingOnsala Space Observatory, OnsalaTask 3 Group |Workshop Oct 15, 2015


Action Items

Next steps

Subject Delivery date
Radio Astronomy booklet translations (final) December 2015



Outreach material

The Task 3 group has focused on the production of material aimed at communicating the scientific issues related to radio astronomy and the international cooperation among the Organizations involved in RadioNet3 project, addressing children and general public. With regards to the creation of play activities for young children, the group has been active in improving and translating some already existing activities, in order to strengthen the internal cooperation on this task and acquire expertise in this field.

The group has translated in all languages supplied by the RadioNet3 Network the European Universe Awareness (EU-UNAWE) booklet The invisible Universe of radio astronomical activities for primary schools. Publication of the translated booklets will be by EU-UNAWE within the end of the project.
We have created a Radionet3 Outreach website, showing information and links about the Outreach and Educational activities led by the Institutions within RadioNet3 (http://www.radionet-eu.org/mapview)
The group has created the comic novel “Eagle View Network” about the birth of EVN and the beginning of the cooperation that has brought to RadioNet as it is now.

Interesting workshops and meetings

* ASTRONET Workshop on Astronomy Education and Public Outreach (June, 17-18, 2013, Heidelberg, Germany)
http://www.eso.org/public/events/special-evt/astronet2013.html

* Technical EUHOU-MW meeting (September 5-6, 2013, Paris, France)

* Communicating Astronomy with the public 2013 (October, 14-18, 2013, Warsaw, Poland)
http://www.communicatingastronomy.org/cap2013/index.html

* European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (30 June – 4 July 2014, Geneva, Switzerland)
http://eas.unige.ch/EWASS2014/


The Chairman of Outreach for the general public is: Stefania Varano (INAF, Bologna)