Wondering what to do during GAM? Here are some ideas for your group. Some of these ideas have global projects being planned to be announced soon. The list is growing with new ideas coming in all the time so be sure to check back regularly.

• Naked eye observation events (Citizen Sky does real science!)
• Binocular events (there are more people with binoculars than telescopes)
• Sidewalk Astronomy (street corners, park, shopping mall, backyard, etc…)
• Messier Marathon
• Dark sky observing events (show the faintest objects, importance of dark skies)
• Urban observing events (not everyone can travel to dark sites)
• Astrophotography events (workshops, contests, exhibitions, etc...)
• Light pollution events (campaigns, awareness programs, etc…)
• Lectures (in-person and online, various topics, by celebrity astronomers, etc…)
• Remote observing - remotely operated observatories
• Road show events (Astro-bus/train/camel/tuk tuk, etc…)
• Astronomical instrument exhibitions in showrooms and elsewhere
• New media astronomy events (virtual meetings, tweetups, etc…)
• Mainstream media events (TV, Radio programs)
• Printed media astronomy (article series, special issues, leaflet campaign, etc…)
• Special Programs for people with disabilities
• Lock-ins – How about some hard-core astronomy? students/people locked in for the night and focus is on astronomy classes, workshops and observing.
• Astronomy Parades - Let's get creative and make some Space suites or ET kit and parade around the town!
• School Astronomy Days – school groups could get together and organize workshops, competitions, camps, etc...
• Geo-Caching - People hide stuff in boxes hidden all over the earth and they are found by a website www.geocaching.com.  The goals are to hunt treasures and log them on the websites. What about hunting some astronomy treasures?
• Host a Trivia Pursuit.  Have astronomy trivia and as people come and sit and eat, ask questions and give out stickers, etc.
• Skits or Puppet Shows -contest for school children to create a skit or puppet show that will educate the public on any astronomy topic or concept.
• Astronomy Fair - Have booths with different games – typical ones with new names.

1. Ring Saturn – have ball painted like Saturn and toss hula-hoops to ring Saturn
2. Milky Way Toss – softballs thrown on milk bottles with stars all over them and they are disrupting the Milky Way.
3. Supernovae Dart – have dart toss with super red giant stars (red balloons) and when they pop the balloon, underneath they find out if their star went to supernovae, black hole or became a neutron star.
4. Black Hole Toss – Have board with black hole painted on it and hole in the middle and toss bean bags of star or planetary fabric, down the singularity.
5. T-Shirts – can be made with stellar or planetary stencils and sponges.

• Astro Food - Have international food with information on that county’s contribution to astronomy or food that can be renamed galactic names, Saturn’s onion rings, snow cones from Pluto, etc.

 

Here are some special dates in April:

4 – 10 April    - International Dark Skies Week
3 April            - Gus Grissom born (1926 – 1967) – second American to fly in space
11 April          - 40th anniversary of Apollo 13
12 April          - Yuri’s Night (world space party) - first person in space, Yuri Gagarin (1961)
12 April          - First orbital flight of the Space Shuttle (1981)
17 April          - World Moon Bounce Day (bounce radio signals off the Moon and back)
18 April          - Albert Einstein died (1955)
19 – 25 April  - Astronomy Week
22 April          - Lyrids meteor shower - 2010 predicted activity
22 April          - Earth Day
23 April          - Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov - first person to die on a space mission (1967)
24 April          - Astronomy Day
25 April          - Hubble Space Telescope 20th anniversary
28 April          - Sir Issac Newton published “Principia” (1686)