Speaker
Description
The Africa Millimetre Telescope (AMT) program successfully facilitates a mobile planetarium in Namibia as part of its educational and outreach projects. The idea for the project arose in the early stages of exploring the possibility of building the telescope in Namibia. However, the lack of locally qualified and experienced technical and scientific personnel to run the operations phase became evident as a risk to the sustainable exploitation of the telescope. The mobile planetarium enables us to simultaneously teach and reach out to local talent with an eye towards the future of AMT.
To that end, we adapted an existing mobile planetarium project, run by the Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA). A unique opportunity arose to set up a sister project in Namibia. Since 2022, more than 30,000 people, mostly schoolchildren, have visited the mobile planetarium. The innovative approach to astronomy outreach - and possibilities for educational purposes - recognized by the Royal Astronomical Society with the 2024 Annie Maunder Medal for Outreach. The IAU Office for Astronomy Education provided seed funding to create training material for student presenters. The project is now gaining such traction in Namibian society that many local businesses support the team with financial or in-kind support.
This contribution explores the best practices of a mobile planetarium for astronomy education, showcases differences and similarities in running this project in the Netherlands and Namibia, and explores the reasons why the feeling of ownership of the project in Namibia is so strong.
| Stream | Education, Development and Outreach |
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