GAM Dark Skies Awareness Programs

The growing loss of dark night skies for much of the world's population is a serious issue. And it's not just astronomical research that suffers. Light pollution affects human health, ecology, safety, security, economics, and energy conservation. According to the United Nations, around 3.3 billion people - over half of the world's population - live in cities. Many have never seen the Milky Way because of light pollution where they live.

GAM Dark Skies Awareness programs are intended to raise awareness of the importance of preserving our night skies. Join in the programs listed below, check out our Dark Skies Poetry, and follow the Dark Skies Awareness Blog, which ran through the whole duration of GAM2014

To encourage others to take part in these events we suggested people organise a Flashmob for Science. This is where a group of people gather together at the same place and time to perform citizen science observations. For pointers on organising your own Flashmob for Science read these instructions.

We also encouraged everyone to share their experiences with the world on Facebook or the Flickr group and Tweet using #GAM2014 (@gam_awb).