The Universe to Youths

Background Astronomy and astrophysics is one of the leading branch of science today. The biggest discoveries of this field are on the cover page of media, tabloid press, TVs and social media showing the very high interest in results of contemporary astronomy. This is because astronomy searches for the answers of the most intriguing question: how Universe and our planet was formed? What is the fate of our Universe? Is there any life form out there? In addition, there is a less known technology transfer from astronomy to industry. Also, astronomy is the best tool to attract the attention of the youth generations for science. especially for astrophysics and physics. Astronomy is present in our evereday life and most people do not know this. Young generations are especially intereted in this scientific problems. Therefore, it is valuable to get closer the astronomers, amateur astronomers and youths in summer camps and observing weekends. In several countries, astronomy is not a discipline in secondary schools. In addition, the night sky is light-polluted in practically all European cities, towns and villages, therefore people do not have chance to see the starry night, the stars, planets and other celestial bodies with their own eyes. This makes that only theoretical astronomy can be teached in schools or in public events for older generations, and there is very small chance to show the Milky Way, fainter stars to the public. The teaching and learning in practice and by practice is one of the best teaching methods. Therefore, astronomical camps are needed which are organized far from habited locations and have the smallest light pollution and thus the best night sky conditions. Under such dark skies, it is possible to show the wonders of the Universe, including stars, planets, moons, galaxies and so on. Then, the view of the outer Universe available from these special places will make a life-long experience for the youths and they can become friends of science and astronomy. It is hoped that their interest will be oriented into science and engineering, too. Also, the experience of dark skies free of light pollution - a special kind of enviromental pollution - can make them engaged supporters of protection of our environment on the earth. Objectives One of the wished achievement is to significantly increase the level of international collaboration in transfer of knowledges, skills and know-hows in science education and popularization. There are many amateur astronomer groups and associations in Europe, supported by professional astronomers, who operate many public observatories, planetariums, organizing different public talks, lectures and events. There are a lot to learn from each other. We want to achieve a library of talks, slides and videos that shows the methods, techniques and practices of the science education and popularization of astronomy at different surfaces: media, social media, Internet, sidewalk astronomy, schools. That would be helpful also for other organizations who did not participate in the present proposal, and also those who are thinking to establish an amateur astronomer association. We also want to achieve that the interest in astronomy is increased among the youth generations. We hope that several of them will choose a career in science, especially in astronomy, astrophysics or space engineering, or in any other field of science or engineering (including the dynamically evolving field of space-engineering). We also expect that the interest in astronomy and, in general, in science, will be solid and enduring because of the experiences in our camps and observing weekend workshops. We'd like to monitor how the interest is spreading beyond the participants, therefore we put the results of monitoring in which we investigate that how the attitude of The content of this page is published for information purposes only. The project was funded by the European Union. However, the communication about the project that is published through this page expresses the views of the project beneficiaries only and it does not represent the views of the European Union or the European Commission. It shall not be deemed to constitute legal or official notice on behalf of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be held responsible for this content nor the use thereof made by any third parties. Page 2 of 5 2021-2-HU01-KA220-YOU-000048482 Generated on: Jan 9, 2026 the parents, friends and maybe colleagues changed after the participants narrated their stories following the events we organized. In summary, the main achievement we aim at is to contribute to reach the goal of EU via our events: 'Making science attractive to young children is one of the priorities of the EU.' Activities Our activity is built around telescopes under dark, starry night observations. This offers the opportunity to get the closest possible contact with the Universe. Through moderate and large astronomical telescopes, the participants can see the wonders of the Cosmos via their own eyes. We plan to organize two international summer astronomical camps (in 2022 and 2023) for secondary school students (age class of 13-18 years) as well as for youths (age class 18-35 years). One will be in Hungary in őrimagyarósd in 2022 July 22-30 and other one in Austria in 2023 August. Their work will be helped by volunteers. These volunteers are experienced amateur and professional astronomers, who can help the night observations. Because the astronomical observations are carried out during nighttime, we need a large numbe of these volunteers to keep all rules and safety during the night work. This is because the participants cannot use significant amount of light, only reduced light of pcket lamps which is also reddened (the human eyes are less sensitive to red light). This is absolutely necessary to keep the dark adaptation of the participants' eyes which help to see the details of the faint astronomical objects. This justifies the large number of the night observing guiders. These volunteers and the participant organizations itself have enough number of the necessary astronomical telescopes up to 46 cm diameter, which is a big portable amateur astronomical telescope. These instruments will be used for the night observations. The basics of telescope use is teached by the volunteers as well as they help to find the objects on the sky. They also guide the participants what stars, planets, moons, asteroids, galaxies and other objects to observe and they help in the recordings, drawings and photographing of the objects. During daytime there will be two-three lectures about related topics. These lectures will be given by profesisonal astronomers as well as experienced amateur astronomers. We encourage the participants to contribute to the lecture series by giving self-prepared mini-talks (15 minutes long). About half of these talks will be introductionary talks which describes the practical nightly work of an astronomer, the physical properties of the celestial bodies and the astrophysical processes in them. Other half of the work will be about more advanced talks about recent astronomical progress and discoveries, like about exoplanets, habitable planets, supernova-reseraches and so on. At least one talk will be about careers in astronomy and science which will touch also gender equality issues in astronomy. We plan to encourage girls and women to choose career in astronomy and science because they are highly underrepresented in this field. We think that it is very useful that for a week the young generations as well as the volunteers will meet with professional astronomers who are working in the forefront of the astronomical researches. We also plan to organize four observing weekend workshops during springs and autumns. Here the night program would be the same as in the summer camps. The advantage of these events is that different celestial objects can be seen during night that summer and therefore the visible astronomical objects would be more various. Also, the regular meetings between two summer camps help to keep the level of interest and future friendships. It also helps us to monitor better how the interest and level of skills change during the project. We plan to monitor the advance of the participants by continuous polls. The daytime program would be consisting of The content of this page is published for information purposes only. The project was funded by the European Union. However, the communication about the project that is published through this page expresses the views of the project beneficiaries only and it does not represent the views of the European Union or the European Commission. It shall not be deemed to constitute legal or official notice on behalf of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be held responsible for this content nor the use thereof made by any third parties. Page 3 of 5 2021-2-HU01-KA220-YOU-000048482 Generated on: Jan 9, 2026 talks where the issues related to science education and astronomical popularization in the schools and out of the schools are discussed. In addition, we start a so-called 'Virtual Astronomical Club'. This means we broadcast via Internet (our homepages, youtube) our popularizing lectures with English subtitles. We plan 10 such talks per year. Impact The expected outcomes and results of the project will be: (1) Two astronomical camps and four observing weekend workshops will be organized and held. We expect ca. 80-100 participants in the camps and 20-40 participants during the observing weekend workshops. The participants will increase their astronomical knowledge, learn the basics of astrophysical laws of the Universe and the basics how Universe works. They will get new pieces of information about recent developments in searching for exoplanets and about possible habitable other planets. They will learn about connections between Astronomy and Physics, Astronomy and Biology, Astronomy and everyday life. During these events, they will learn what an astronomical telescope is, what type of them exists and how to use it to observe the celestial bodies. They will make simple basic measurements and will do morphological studies of deep-sky objects. This latter one means making drawings and photographs next to the telescope about the sky objects. Such activities will help to learn about the types and diversity of the astronomical objects, and will give an introduction on how they look like, how the work, how they formed and evolved. They will also get a feeling about the astronomical distances which help to illustrate how big the Universe is and how small the earth is. We also teach the constellation and their histories to the participants, so this helps to introduce them into our cultural heritage what the ancient people left to us. We will talk about the legends related to the present day constellations. All of these activities will help the participants to become a friend of astronomy, to increase their interest in astronomy and science. (2) During the observing weekends workshop, we exchange our experiences about the following topics. We discuss the role of summer astronomical camps in science popularization and in maintanenece of the interest. We discuss the effect of sidewalk astronomy in popularization of astronomy, in finding contacts to the public and to the young children. We also discuss the effectiveness of media and social media apperances, virtual programmes, videos download e.g. to youtube and webpages in increasing the interest and knowledge in astronomy. The outcome of these discussions will serve as a basis to redefine our strategies of science popularization and educational activities. This outcome will be reported in a webpage in English and it can help for other similar associations of amateur astronomers and professional astronomers, science educators in the EU and worldwide. (3) During the summer camp and observing weekend workshops, and also electronically during the run of the whole project, we transfer knowledge and exchange methods of science popularization and educational activities. While profesisonal astronomers and science educators may have an official committee (the Office of Astronomy for Education of the International Astronomical Union) to exchange methods and experiences, there is no such possibility for amateur astronomers and voluntary science educators and secondary school teachers at international level. There are some meetings, workshops and even periodicals at national level to do that in astronomy and astrophysics, but we make a step forward to start international collaborations to establish The content of this page is published for information purposes only. The project was funded by the European Union. However, the communication about the project that is published through this page expresses the views of the project beneficiaries only and it does not represent the views of the European Union or the European Commission. It shall not be deemed to constitute legal or official notice on behalf of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be held responsible for this content nor the use thereof made by any third parties. Page 4 of 5 2021-2-HU01-KA220-YOU-000048482 Generated on: Jan 9, 2026 appropriate frames for such cooperations. The outcome of these would be the study of the science educational and science popularization methods in different countries, which can be utilized in the own countries of the participants after that. We plan to present the slides and the records of the talks and lectures in this topic in the webpage of our project. Link to project card: Show project card * Results are available for this project. You can click on the link above, and go to "Results" section to view them The content of this page is published for information purposes only. The project was funded by the European Union. However, the communication about the project that is published through this page expresses the views of the project beneficiaries only and it does not represent the views of the European Union or the European Commission. It shall not be deemed to constitute legal or official notice on behalf of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the European Commission can be held responsible for this content nor the use thereof made by any third parties. Page 5 of 5