Astrophysics, and how to attract young people into Physics

     2005 is the World Year of Physics. As the centenary of Einstein's papers is celebrated throughout the world, there is however no certainty to find enough young scientists to take over this heritage in the near future. In this context, it is useful to wonder how to attract young people into Phyics. Astrophysics definitely seems a very useful "tool" to reach this objective, since it has always fascinated Humanity and can thus easily find a very large public.

     This parallel session aims at sharing the experience of teaching astronomy from primary to graduate schools. Concrete solutions will be presented during this session. Fully-tested and very efficient tools should be proposed to the astronomers interested in astronomy education.

     In this context, direct collaborations between scientists and teachers and meetings of scientists with students could be discussed.

Scientific committee for this workshop:

       Nazé YaëlULg, Belgium (co-chair)
       Magda Stavinschi   Astron. Inst. of the Romanian Academy, Romania (co-chair)
       Martine VanherckULg, Belgium

Afternoon talks:

Wednesday - 6 July 2005       Room: R52
13h30~13h50 The importance of Scientific literacy in our Society
Jose M. Rodriguez-Espinosa
13h50-14h10 Is mass media beneficial or not for the information of the general public?
Magda Stavinschi & Catalin Mosoia
14h10-14h30 A network dedicated to sciences dissemination : Scité
Marie Botman (for the Scité network)
14h30-14h50 Education projects at ESO
Henri Boffin
14h50-15h10 EAAE and Astronomy for European schools
Fernand Wagner
15h10-15h30 Bringing science into schools through astronomy. Project ASTRO, Tucson (USA), 2002-2003
Caroline Barban & Hervé Dole
15h30-16h00 Coffee
16h00-16h20 La main à la pâte: the French undertaking to renovate science education in primary schools
Pierre Léna & Emmanuel Di Folco
16h20-16h40 Stars in the eyes, birth of a vocation ?
Yaël Nazé
16h40-17h00 Imagine all the students... living zero-G
Hélène Decauwer & Hervé Caps
17h00-17h15 Astronomy and astrophysics in Kosice
Rudolf Galis & Peter Kanuk
17h15-18h00 General discussion

No poster for this session

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