The IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE) is excited to announce the call for proposals for the Teacher Training Program (TTP) 2024. This initiative encourages collaboration between teachers, astronomers, and the National Astronomy Education Coordinators (NAECs) to organise impactful teacher training and development workshops in their respective countries or regions. Successful workshop proposals may receive financial support of up to €2000.

To be eligible, workshops must be on a topic related to astronomy and must involve collaboration between a NAEC team member, a teacher, and, if possible, an astronomer. This team will work together to create and conduct a teacher workshop tailored to their specific preferences, where teachers will be empowered with astronomy knowledge and skills they can bring to their classrooms.

The OAE invites everyone working in astronomy education, together with their NAECs, to submit proposals to organise and run a TTP workshop in 2024. The OAE currently has 412 NAECs in about 120 countries worldwide. Teachers and astronomers who are interested in leading a workshop can connect with a NAEC in their country for potential collaboration. All NAEC teams are listed here. For TTPs proposed from India, the Associate NAECs will be treated on par with the NAECs.

Applications must be submitted by the deadline of 15 April 2024. More information about the programme and how to submit a proposal can be found on the TTP webpage. For any inquiries or clarifications, please see the TTP FAQs or contact us by email at ttp@astro4edu.org.

In the previous year, OAE proudly supported 21 TTP workshops globally. We would like to congratulate the following countries and NAECs (with their teams) that received the TTP grant in 2023: Argentina (Néstor Camino, Carolina Garay, Iván Bustos Fierro, María Silvina De Biasi, Mariela Corti & David Merlo), China (Cuilan Qian, Shanshan Li, Qingquan Jiang & Chenzhou Cui), Colombia (Ángela Patricia Pérez Henao, Carolina Escobar García, Julián Tobón Moreno, Mauricio Arango & Carlton Pennypacker), Ethiopia (Nebiyu, Mohammed, Abdurahman Ahmed & Mirjana Pović), Ghana (Albert Kuntu Forson, Sarah Boamah, Naomi Asabre Frimpong), India 1 (Suchetana Chatterjee, Madhuri Katti, Suparna Roychowdhury), India 2 (Niruj Mohan Ramanujam, Ganguly Jayant & Ravikumar C D), Iran (Saeed Jafari, Maryam Papari, Hossein Khezri & Parham Eisvandi Dehnoei), Kenya (​​Susan Murabana, Joseph Kimani & Ann Njeri), South Korea (Jeong Ae Lee, Imyeon Hwa, Jonghwa Lee & Boyoung Cho), Madagascar (Ando Ratsimbazafy, Hery Ralambonirina, Solohery Randriamampandry), Nepal (Rabina Maharjan, Rupa Manandhar, Laxman Dangol), Pakistan 1 (Hira Fatima, Moiz Ahmed, Aiman Siddiqui, Ghulam Mustafa Laghari & M. Ali Ismail), Pakistan 2 (Muhammad Jawed Iqbal, Muhammad Aqib Khan & Najam Naqvi), Slovakia (Tomáš Dobrovodský, František Strýček, Stanislav Kaniansky & Karol Havrila), South Africa (Sally Macfarlane, Lovemore Murwisi, Sibusiso Mdhluli), Syria 1 (Tareq Alkhateb, Sarah Albderah & Mohammad Alassiry), Syria 2 (Turkieh Jbour, Nasser Alhaiba & Imad Asadi), Togo (ADDOR Doh Koffi, AGBEKO Akouvi & Rosa Maria Ros Ferré), Tunisia (AbdelHafidh Teyahi, Mohamed Naamoun, Saadia Ksouri & Nejmeddine Etteyeb), and Zambia (Jackson Siantuba, Agrippa Chilanda & Saul Paul Phiri). Special thanks to OAE Center Italy and OAE Center India for their dedicated funding support for primary school astronomy teacher training and TTPs in the Indian region, respectively.

More information

The IAU is the international astronomical organisation that brings together more than 12 000 active professional astronomers from more than 100 countries worldwide. Its mission is to promote and safeguard astronomy in all its aspects, including research, communication, education, and development, through international cooperation. The IAU also serves as the internationally recognised authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies and the surface features on them. Founded in 1919, the IAU is the world's largest professional body for astronomers.

The IAU Office of Astronomy for Education is hosted at Haus der Astronomie (HdA), managed by the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy. The OAE’s mission is to support and coordinate astronomy education by astronomy researchers and educators, aimed at primary or secondary schools worldwide. HdA’s hosting the OAE was made possible through the support of the German foundations the Klaus Tschira Foundation and the Carl Zeiss Foundation.

Links

• TTP webpage and application form
• List of NAEC teams
• FAQs
• Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE)

Contacts

Lars Lindberg Christensen
IAU Director of Communications
Cell: +1 520 461 0433/+49 173 38 72 621
Email: lars.christensen@noirlab.edu