Close to 40 teachers from different regions of Chile attended a two-day workshop as part of the Galileo Teacher Training Programme (GTTP) on STEM and Astronomy education at the ALMA offices in Santiago of Chile. The activity celebrated on August 25 and September 1, was coordinated between ALMA and Associated Universities Inc. (AUI), and gathered 36 teachers from different regions of Chile in the seventh version of GTTP in this country.
In Chile, it was AUI, ALMA’s North American partner, that started working with GTTP as a study program for elementary school science teachers and high school physics teachers. The objective of this program is for teachers to learn how to use different low-cost or free astronomical resources that they can then apply to their students’ classroom learning.
Teachers traveled from all over Chile, including Puerto Aysén, 1,600 kilometers south of Santiago, to learn these techniques at the ALMA office during these days, where they also had the chance to interact with the astronomer José Gallardo. “GTTP is a program that goes beyond simple practice with hard data. It awakens curiosity and desire for knowledge among the teachers,” said Professor Carolina Guzmán, from Emelina Urrutia School of El Monte, who was very happy to attend. Carolina is one of the 206 Chilean teachers who have been trained by GTTP, benefitting more than 16,000 school children in public and private schools in the country.
Teachers from all over Chile gathered in ALMA offices in Santiago for the GTTP on August 25 and September 1, 2018. Credit: S. Cabezón (AUI/NRAO/NSF).
ALMA astronomer José Gallardo interacted with teachers in the GTTP workshop in Santiago. Credit: S. Cabezón (AUI/NRAO/NSF)
GTTP teachers had the opportunity to see the invisible light emitted by objects temperature. The image shows how an infrared camera can measure an object temperature without touching it. Credit: R. Bennett – ALMA (NRAO/NAOJ/ESO)