The past week our team joined the second Shaw-IAU Workshop led by our sister office, the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE). We would like to congratulate Markus Pössel and the rest of our OAE colleagues for the fruitful discussions. We would also like to welcome the new National Astronomy Educational Coordinators (NAECs) and we are looking forward to further collaborating with them.
In our office, we’ve recently closed applications for the first phase of our annual NOCs Funding Scheme mentioned in this newsletter. We are also currently selecting the Astronomy@Home Awards winners and will follow up with more news on this by early November.
Wishing you clear skies and good health! Lina Canas & Izumi Hansen, on behalf of the IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach (OAO) Team
P.S. The link to the NASE programme in Item 7 of the #2 August 2020 issue was improperly formatted. The correct link is: www.naseprogram.org
1) Accepting Nominations for NOC Nigeria
The IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach (OAO) is welcoming applications for the National Outreach Coordinator for Nigeria. Applicants must be in or from Nigeria. More information about the NOC role and prerequisites can be found here: https://iau.org/public/noc/
Individuals interested in this volunteer position should email public@oao.iau.org with the subject line "NOC Nigeria" by 20 October 2020.
We’d like to thank our previous NOC Nigeria Onyeuwaoma Nnaemeka Dom for his collaboration and support to the OAO and IAU.
2) SKA joins the NOCs Funding Scheme
The IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach (OAO) is excited to partner with the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) Organisation to expand the reach of the NOCs Funding Scheme. Members of SKA’s Communication & Outreach Network (SKACON) will now be able to partner with IAU National Outreach Coordinators (NOCs) a limited number of grants for radio astronomy outreach.
The Communicating Astronomy with the Public (CAP) conference will be held online in 2021 and the next in-person CAP conference is tentatively planned to be held in-person in Sydney, Australia in 2022.
The IAU is accepting applications for consideration in the IAU PhD Prize. The Prize is open to candidates from any country, regardless of whether the country has IAU National Membership, who defended their thesis between 16 December 2019 and 15 December 2020. The deadline to apply is 15 December 2020.
6) Lagitselatan Interview between NOC Indonesia and IAU President Ewine van Dishoeck
Our NOC Indonesia spoke with IAU President Ewine van Dishoeck about her work in astronomy, her role as the IAU president, and how the IAU supports astronomy globally. The interview was done as part of the Astro Wicara programme with langitselatan.
Thank you to our Avivah Yamani for sharing this news with us.
7) Astronomers Without Borders #UndertheSameStars Campaign
Astronomers Without Borders has begun a social media campaign to encourage people to look up at the sky and feel connected to others around the world. They will be sharing inspiration and information on their social media channels.
CoAstro: @n Astronomy Condo is a citizen science project bringing together researchers, teachers, and students in Portugal. The team combines activity and research through the project, and have released the results of their first iteration of the programme and opened applications for the second iteration.
Japanese:http://bit.ly/2xlNyCR
Translations are thanks to Akihiko Tomita, through the Astronomy Translation Network.
You can subscribe to the Japanese newsletter through the Japanese Amateur Astronomers Association (http://www.jaaa-astro.jp/jaaa-ml.html) or the Japanese Society for Education and Popularization of Astronomy (http://www.tenkyo.net/).
If you are interested in translating the IAU Outreach Newsletter into your language, please email public@oao.iau.org.
11) Contributions to the IAU Outreach Newsletter—looking forward to hearing from you in 2020
Here at the IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach, we’re always looking for news about astronomical education and outreach events around the world. Please continue to share your stories with us in 2020! If you are organising large-scale events at a regional or international level, offering astronomy education or communication job positions, have any innovative projects or inspiring stories, looking for professional-amateur collaboration in astronomy, or have created any educational resources, let us know by sending an email to public@oao.iau.org.
You can send us your suggestions until the 4th (for issue #1) and the 17th (for issue #2) day of each month. We are looking forward to hearing from you.
