Bad Honnef, Germany, 2-7 July, 2001.
Once again the WG3 of EAAE has organised the EAAE International Summer School. From 2nd to 7th July 2001, fifty participants from 13 European countries attended a group of activities related to "Astronomy at the dawn of the third Millennium".
Teachers from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain exchanged information on Teaching Astronomy field, spread over 2 General Lectures, 13 Workshops, 1 General Working Group, 2 Observations, 1 Poster and 1 Bazaar session.
General Lectures
1. Future Developments In Radio.
2. The ESO Very Large Telescope: Technology, Science and Education.
Workshops
1. A Foucault's Pendulum for Schools.
2. About Distances in the Universe (Rupert Genseberger).
3. Cepheid Stars and the Distance of the Galaxies (Frédéric Dahringer).
4. Determination of the Distance and the Age of a Star Cluster (Rainer C. Gaitzsch).
5. Light Pollution, an Introduction to Astronomy Environmental (M. Metaxa).
6. Making a Constellation Slide (Sakari Ekko).
7. Micro and Macrocosm.
8. Reflections on the Shape of Spiral Galaxies by Means of Photographs and Computer Simulations (Rainer C. Gaitzsch).
9. The Age of the Crab Nebula (Frédéric Dahringer).
10. The Moon's Orbit, a Practical and Computational Project.
11. The Planets and the Measure of the Time: The "Planetary Week".
12. The Sun and its Daily and Annual Paths (Josée Sert).
13. Two Steps in the Stars Movements: A Demonstrator and a Local Model of the Celestial Sphere.
General Working Groups
1. Curricula on Astronomy and Schoolbooks in European Countries.
Observational Resources
1. CCD Observations.
2. Night-Time Observations.
Posters
1. Could it Possible to Connect the Provençana Schools to the Solar Energy.
2. Easy Solar Observation at School.
3. European Socrates Projects: An Easy and Versatile Way to Get the Research in Didactic of Astronomy.
4. Poetry: A Diferente Way to Astronomy.
5. Teaching Astronmy and Navigation.
6. Teaching Astronomy at Teacher Development School.
7. What Comes Into Your Mind, When You Hear Astronomy.
The Summer School enjoyed a special book exhibition from all the countries participating in the event, which offered the opportunity to compare books from different European countries. The organisers of this conference always encourage active participation by all the teachers and professors through personal contributions to the poster session, in the common discussions or in the book exhibition especially promoted this year. As a result of this spirit of promoting the exchange of information, each participant received the Proceedings, which included all the activities, at the beginning of the Summer School. All of these papers appeared in English and one of the two other official languages of the Summer School. This year, as well as of English, the official languages were German as hosted country and French for reasons of proximity.
The General Lecture of the opening session was presented by Dr. Richard West from the ESO and Dr. Norbert Junkers from the Max Planck Institute presented the General Lecture in the closing session. A group of 12 instructor members of EAAE produced the prior list of activities during the meeting. The majority of them are members of WG3-EAAE: Frédéric Dahringer, Rainer Gaitzsch, Rupert Gesenberger, Leonarda Fucili, Irma Hannula, Rosa M. Ros, Josée Sert, Roland Szostak, Eder Vinuales, Joachim Wallasch and Werner Warland. Some instructors, non-members of WG3-EAAE, were invited to present workshops, including Sakari Ekko, Margarita Metaxa, as well as Dr. Michael Geffert from Bonn University.
We spent the morning and the first part of the afternoon in Workshops, the second part of each afternoon in General Working groups, Poster sessions, Bazaars and on Friday we had a special session evaluating the activities carried out. The evenings were used for observation sessions (one CCD session and another visual session with telescopes) and book exhibitions. The General lectures took place at the opening and the closing session. Thursday afternoon was spent on a boat trip on the Rhine, which offered us a wonderful sunny day for enjoying our excursion. When we returned to Bad Honnef, a Barbecue in the garden ended the day. Finally, on Saturday morning we visited the Effersberg Radio Telescope at the Max Planck Institute, where the closing session took place.
The 5th Summer School was held in the Physikzentrum Bad Honnef, with the support of the German Physical Society (GPD) and German Mathematical Society (MNU). Both helped us to organise the course with the facilities that we needed. It is necessary to thank the director of the Physikzentrum Bad Honnef, Dr. Joachim Debrus, for his help during the entire meeting. Without his co-operation and support for the Local Organising Committee, it would not have been possible to run the course as successfully.
The Summer School enjoyed a special book exhibition from all the countries participating in the event, which offered the opportunity of comparing the books from different European countries. It was the basis for an interesting discussion regarding different curricula across Europe.
Photos
Rosa M. Ros.