The Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE) is delighted to announce the call for proposals for workshops for the Teacher Training Program 2023 (TTP). Proposed workshops must be on a topic related to astronomy teacher training and professional development, and must be created in collaboration with one of the OAE’s National Astronomy Education Coordinators (NAECs). Successful proposals may receive financial support of up to €2000.

The TTP was launched in 2022, and supported 21 workshops around the world in its first year. Following this success, the OAE is running the initiative again in 2023. To be eligible for the programme, workshops must involve collaboration between a NAEC team member, a local teacher and, if possible, an astronomer. Applications should be submitted by the NAEC team member; those that do not meet this requirement will not be considered.

The OAE currently has NAECs in 115 countries worldwide. If you are a teacher interested in running a TTP workshop, please contact a NAEC in your country to enquire about collaborating. You can find all NAEC teams listed here.

Please note that the focus of the OAE is teaching and learning – not outreach — and that its work is aimed specifically at the primary- and secondary-school levels — not university. Please see the Office of Astronomy for Outreach (OAO) and the Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) for support in other astronomy activities beyond the local school system.

Applications must be submitted online by the deadline of 1 May 2023.

For more information on the eligibility criteria, rules, and advice on filling out the application form, please see the FAQ section on the website. You can contact us at ttp@astro4edu.org if you have any questions.

We would like to congratulate the following countries and NAECs (with their teams) that received the TTP grant in 2022: Algeria (Abdehlafidh Radhouane Benmehaia), Armenia (Armine Patatanyan), Chad (Mamadou Mahamat Djabbi), Chile (Carla Hernandez), Bangladesh (Farseem Mohammedy), Ethiopia (Neyibu Seleyman), Finland (Pasi Nurmi), Ghana (Sarah Abotsi-Masters), Kenya (Paul Baki and Suran Murabana), Kyrgyzstan (Boris Nurdinov), Mali (Abdoulkarim Aliou), Pakistan (Hira Fatima), Reunion (Matthieu Renaud), Romania (Ana Elisabeta Naghi), Rwanda (Joseph Ntahompagaze), Tanzania (Noorali Jiwali), Tunisia (Abdelhafidh Teyahi), Turkey (Ayşegül Fulya Yelkenci), the US (Wiliam Bill Waller), and a special mention to Haiti (Rulx Narcisse).

More information

The IAU is the international astronomical organisation that brings together more than 12 000 active professional astronomers from more than 100 countries worldwide. Its mission is to promote and safeguard astronomy in all its aspects, including research, communication, education and development, through international cooperation. The IAU also serves as the internationally recognised authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies and the surface features on them. Founded in 1919, the IAU is the world's largest professional body for astronomers.

The IAU Office of Astronomy for Education is hosted at Haus der Astronomie (HdA), managed by the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy. The OAE’s mission is to support and coordinate astronomy education by astronomy researchers and educators, aimed at primary or secondary schools worldwide. HdA’s hosting the OAE was made possible through the support of the German foundations the Klaus Tschira Foundation and the Carl Zeiss Foundation.

Links

• Teacher Training Program 2023
• Office of Astronomy for Education
• National Astronomy Education Coordinators

Contacts

Gwen Sanderson
OAE/Haus der Astronomie/Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie 
Email: sanderson@astro4edu.org 

Lars Lindberg Christensen
IAU Director of Communications
Cell: +1 520 461 0433/+49 173 38 72 621
Email: lars.christensen@noirlab.edu