Public Outreach supported activities
Communicating our scientific know-how and our technological ability, especially to future generations, is a fundamental aim of the IAC and part of the debt we owe to the world we live in. The Severo Ochoa Programme is significantly contributing to this mission by supporting the following key actions:
PETeR: Educational Project with Robotic Telescopes
'PETeR - Robots looking at the sky' (www.iac.es/peter) is an educational project of the IAC which aims to engage students in science and to encourage them to acquire STEM skills through their active participation in guided research in Astronomy using robotic telescopes. The project provides students with different approaches to experience the culture of doing science, such as learning scenarios and research projects, and at the same time, allows them to discover the universe making their own observations of their favorite objects.
Thanks to agreements signed between the IAC and the owner institutions of several robotic telescopes installed at the Observatories of the Canary Islands (the Liverpool Telescope, the OpenScience Observatories, LCO, …), some observing time with these telescopes is available through PETeR to the Spanish educational community.
Talk to them: Women in Astronomy
It is an initiative that aims to make visible the work of women in Astronomy-Astrophysics, while offering girls inspiring models to promote their scientific and technological vocations. It consists of videoconferences with educational centres by IAC women astrophysicists and engineers, in which they explain their work, talk about their field of research and answer students' questions about the scientific and technological careers, the Universe or the methods we use to get to know it better.
The project will have its first activity on 11 February 2019 in intensive format, with a maximum of 15 videoconferences from 8:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. (Canary Islands time), and will continue during the school year on the dates agreed between the lecturers and the centres.
More information: Talk to them: Women in Astronomy
“NIÉPCE: from the negative to the positive”
With this project the IAC, through its Communication and Scientific Culture Unit, wants to pay tribute to the Photography for allowing to exponentially multiply the data obtained with the telescopes, and after 200 years of the first photographic images in negative of the history. The objective of this initiative, sponsored by the Severo Ochoa Program of Excellence, is the creation of a new bank of images obtained with the telescopes of the Observatories of the Canary Islands to generate with them itinerant exhibitions, educational resources, audiovisual shows, calendars,... In addition, the "Fotomatón Cósmico", a remote astrograph already installed in the Teide Observatory with which wide-field astronomical images of great depth will be obtained, will allow developing activities such as the itinerant educative exhibition "100 SQUARE MOONS" and the contest "Send us your piece of the sky" for amateur astronomers.
More information: NIÉPCE: from the negative to the positive”, a tribute of astronomy to photography
"Somewhere in the Universe" Project
The IAC realizes that there is an inexplicable dichotomy between science and the humanities in modern society. For this reason and coinciding with the fourth centenary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes, this center and the international institutions participating in the Canary Island Observatories, in collaboration with the Museum of Science and the Cosmos, of Museos de Tenerife, are joining in the celebrations with a cross-disciplinary project which brings together literature and astronomy, supported by funding from the Severo Ochoa Programme. As part of this project, renowned figures from Spanish Literature are invited to visit the Observatories of the Canary Islands and participate in the edition of a volume of short stories inspired by Astronomy that will have a solidarity aim related to Alzheimer's disease.
More information: Well known Spanish literary personalities visit the Canary Island Observatories
"The return of Henrietta Leavitt. From school to research career through the theater"
The project includes a series of free scientific outreach activities that will start with the replacement of the multimedia theatrical show 'The Lost Honor of Henrietta Leavitt'. Morning sessions for schoolchildren and afternoon sessions for the general public will take place from 20 to 27 October in various theaters in Tenerife. It also includes lectures on astronomy and workshops in educational centers, a special edition of the IAC Paralajes magazine, with articles on women's work in Astronomy and centered on those working in this institute, a video on astrophysicists and technologists from the center and a street Graffiti to reinforce the diffusion of the project. This project, which arises in the context of "Gender in Physics Day Spain 2017 (GiPD). Policies of Equality in Physics: from school to research career "of the European Project GENERA, is an initiative of the IAC, with the collaboration of the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) of the Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness and the Severo Ochoa Program.
More information: The return of Henrietta Leavitt
Previous Public Outreach supported activities (2012 - 2015)
