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GAM 2016 Blog
GAM 2016 BlogStart Your Own Science Centre
By Kyra Romero, Pedro Russo and Iris Nijman, Astronomy & Society Group, Leiden University, the Netherlands E-mail: Open Science Centre architecture views Science and innovation improves the world we live in. Fascination for science should not be confined to scientists themselves. Appropriate communication about science and technology will keep the general public in touch with the field and abreast of developments . 1 Unfortunately many communities around the world are not engaged with science and technology. At the same time some of the most advanced Observatories in the world are located in remote (and many times disadvantaged) regions. It...
The Importance of Light in Our Everyday Life
By Megan Watzke & Kim Arcand The International Year of Light 2015 was an extraordinary opportunity to talk about how important light is in our everyday lives. From its technological and manufacturing impacts to applications in healthcare, from its use in astronomy to molecular biology, and from poor lighting to light pollution, light is much more than just the switch of a bulb. The Electromagnetic Spectrum: the wavelength of radiation produced by an object is usually related to its temperature. (Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss) The light that humans can detect with our eyes (known as “visible light”) is a tiny fraction of...
Astronomy for Development: Recognition and Consolidation
By Kevin Govender On the 30 th March 2016, just before the start of GAM2016, the work of the IAU Office of Astronomy for Development ( OAD ) was recognized through a very special international event in Edinburgh, UK – the award of the 2016 Edinburgh Medal . This award has placed the IAU and the work of the OAD (which I humbly represented at the awards ceremony) on the same list of awardees as Prof Peter Higgs and CERN (2013), Prof Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1999), Sir David Attenborough (1998) and Prof Abdus Salam (1989). The associated attention has been...
So Many Great, Free Astronomy Resources, So Many Places to Look:
By Keely Finkelstein Image: Educators using the Galaxies & Cosmos Explorer Tool. Image credit: K. Finkelstein. Working with teachers and students always fuels my love for astronomy, it continues to motivate me to do what I do, and love doing it. Many of us chose astronomy because we love the fascination of it, we like working out problems, discovering unknowns, and finding out what the universe is trying to tell us. Often astronomy can be one of the easier sciences to share and engage the public with; people get excited about the vastness of space, but it still presents a...
One Sky. Done! One People. Ocupado…
By Grom D. Matthies This is the final GAM article for the Diverse Universe Week , Monday 18 to Sunday 24 April 2016. This week's posts on the GAM Blog will focus on the diversity of the global astronomy community. Everything has an end, except sausages which tend to have two. As such, this year's GAM is also coming to an end after plenty of activities and events have been realised throughout the entire month and all around the world. The world in the year 2016 and locations there activities were unfold during the Global Astronomy Month. Curiously and quite...
