A summary report of GTTP session organised by Pawel Ziemnicki:
On March 2014 at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński School in Warsaw, Poland, Galileo Ambassador Paweł Ziemnicki organised a GTTP session on ‘How do objects move in the solar system?’.
The programme engaged students from ages 11 to 16 years and their teachers. Throughout the workshop the activities were presented in more hands-on and creative method to increase the social engagement.
Topics such as celestial sphere, using a piece of Peter Weir’s 1998 movie; ‘Truman Show’, the Polaris star and how to find it, reference to constellations using the software Stellarium, day and night, rotation of the Earth, seasons, Earth orbiting the Sun, using different material such as a globe, lamp and Google Earth. The programme presented also a careful adaptation minding the student’s age and grade level. The scientific topics were shown, adding different levels of complexity accordingly and extending the program even further, with comparisons of the geocentric and the heliocentric theoretical model of the Solar System, first Kepler’s Law of the planetary motion, drawing ellipses on the cork boards, and many more.
The programme also included dedicated sessions for the teachers on the use of several digital and interactive tools for teaching astronomy, introducing Stellarium, Google Earth, Celestia, Worldwide Telescope and many more.
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