Astronomy in the City for Astronomy Education

Abstract

Astronomy is part of our culture. Astronomy cannot be isolated in a classroom, it has to be integrated in the normal life of teachers and students. “Astronomy in the city” is an important part of NASE (Network for Astronomy School Education) (Ros & Hemenway 2012). In each NASE course we introduce a “working group session” chaired by a local expert in cultural astronomy. The chair introduces several examples of astronomy in their city and after that, the participants have the opportunity to discuss and mention several similar examples. After this session all participants visit one or two sites proposed and introduced by the chair.

After more than 5 years using this method we visited and discovered several examples of astronomy in the city:

•Astronomy in ancient typical clothes.

•Archaeological temples oriented according to the sunrise or set.

•Petroglyphs with astronomical meaning.

•Astronomy in monuments.

•Sundials.

•Oriented Colonial churches.

•Astronomy in Souvenirs.

In any case, teachers and students discover that Astronomy is part of their everyday life. They can take into account the Sun's path when they park their car or when they take a bus “what is the best part in order to be seat in the shadow during the journey?” The result is motivation to go with “open eyes” when they are in the street and they try to get more and more information about their surroundings.

In summary, one of the main activities is to introduce local cultural aspects in NASE astronomy courses. The participants can discover a new approach to local culture from an astronomical point of view.