Speaker
Description
In this talk, I will describe two large scale projects organised by the Science Communication, Public Outreach, and Education (SCOPE) Section of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), both of which utilise the Cascade Model as a core strategy. The first is an ongoing program where, in partnership with the Government of the Karnataka State, we are promoting astronomy and low cost hands-on activities across rural Karnataka through their 5,888 rural libraries that serve as community centres - via training workshops, activity sheets, naked eye astronomy, online talks, and in-person events. This has already shown considerable response from the rural communities.
The second is a recently concluded campaign for the 7 September 2025 Total Lunar Eclipse, where we organised training workshops for local science communicators, enabled 50,000 posters in Tamil to be put up in public places, organised multiple school talks against superstitions, and information in many languages to every school in three States, formed state-wide platforms of astronomy outreach groups, made livestreams available for national and international media, and facilitated a national information flow through press conferences.
I will discuss the strategies for both these projects, the impact they have had in terms of increased awareness of the science versus pseudo-science in these topics, and capacity building of local science communicators in the process. I will also discuss how the two projects use the Library Supervisors and local science communicators respectively in the Cascade Model framework. I will end with some learnings that might be relevant in the African context.
| Stream | Education, Development and Outreach |
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