The CESAR project during the COVID pandemic
- 1ESA, European Space Astronomy Center (ESAC), Madrid, Spain (sandra.benitezherrera@esa.int)
- 2ISFEDE, Madrid, Spain
- 3Aurora for ESA, European Space Astronomy Center (ESAC), Madrid, Spain
CESAR (Cooperation through Education in Science and Astronomy Research) is a joint educational initiative between ESA (European Space Agency), INTA (Spanish National Institute for Aerospace Technology) and ISDEFE (Spanish state-owned consulting and engineering Company). Its main goal is to engage school students with STEM disciplines through the wonders of the Universe. The CESAR programme offers teacher training courses on Astronomy and Planetary Science topics to provide hints and inspiration for the use of space in school lessons to European educators and allow them to interact with scientists and experts too. These trainings had to be fully adapted to a virtual format due to the pandemic caused by the Covid-19 in a very short time scale.
Moreover a complete set of online activities, the so-called Space Science Experiences (SSE), was develop during this period for primary and secondary schools, providing them with different educational resources, such as: online labs, virtual tours, access to scientific data from ESA space missions, proposal of experiments…all within the inquiry-based learning framework.
In this talk we will explain the process of design, development and classroom application of the on-line SSEs and present the lessons learned and success from this virtual approach.
How to cite: Benitez Herrera, S., Vaquerizo, J. A., Perez Ayucar, M., Gonzalez, B., and Gonzalez Lopez-Tercero, D.: The CESAR project during the COVID pandemic, Europlanet Science Congress 2022, Granada, Spain, 18–23 Sep 2022, EPSC2022-69, https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2022-69, 2022.
