4. newsletter

Dear reader,

We already have  for you the fourth newsletter dedicated to the transnational project STARS (Successfully Teaching AstRonomy in Schools) that publishing house of primary and secondary schools´ textbooks EXPOL PEDAGOGIKA ltd. has started to implement in November 2017 in cooperation with six other partners from three European countries – Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria.

We would like to give you current information about what we have done so far in the project, how we are going to continue and what is planned for the next period of the project.

We believe that together we will succeed in achieving our main goal – to support the teachers teaching astronomy at lower secondary education. Various researches have shown the fact that in most education systems in Central and Eastern Europe, teachers struggle to highlight the interrelation of subjects due to lack of resources and sometimes even information on certain topics. This is extremely valid information with regard to the instruction of astronomy-related subjects.

Continue to follow us on the web and social media!

STARS partners

This project has been co-funded with the support of the Erasmus+ Programme, K2 action, Strategic Partnerships in School Education. Project Agreement Number: 2017-1-SK01-KA201-035344

The current publication reflects the author´s view only and neither the Slovak National Agency, nor the European Commission are responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.

Since November 2017, the publishing house of primary and secondary schools´ textbooks EXPOL PEDAGOGIKA ltd. situated in Bratislava (www.expolpedagogika.sk) has been implementing the transnational project STARS (Successfully Teaching AstRonomy in Schools) whose aim is to support the teachers teaching astronomy at lower secondary education. At the project that is slowly heading to its end there are six partners from three different countries participating together with us – Slovakia, Czech Republic and Bulgaria. Our aim is to equip teachers with comprehensive methods and tools to improve their teaching practices, as well as concrete ideas of how to present a given topic in astronomy-related curriculum.

What have we done in the project so far?

We worked at different project tasks and outputs together with project partners during the period from September 2018 until July 2019. During the autumn 2018, we introduced the created methodical materials to the teachers at partner schools and subsequently we tested them among students. The partners from universities implement all comments and changes gained through the testing process and developed the final version of Methodological Handbook for Teachers (O1). We worked also at the 1^st version of Training Programme for Teachers (O2) during the first half of the year 2019.

3^rd Transnational project meeting of STARS partners in Sofia

The meeting took place in the lovely hotel Metropolitan in Sofia in Bulgaria during 21^st– 23^rd August 2019. The representatives of all project partners from three different countries (Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Bulgaria) attended the meeting.

• Grammar School Metodova 2 Bratislava; M7 ltd. (SVK)
• The University of West Bohemia in Pilsen; Primary School at Říčany Wood (CZ)
• Bulgarian Astronomical Society; High School of Mathematics akad. Kiril Popov, Plovdiv (BG)

The coordinator and the organiser of the project meeting was textbooks´ publishing house EXPOL PEDAGOGIKA ltd. in cooperation with the Bulgarian Astronomical Society.

Content of the meeting was:

• presentation and analysis of the 1^st drafted version of Training Programme for Teachers (O2),
• proposal of the organisation of piloting and testing phase of the created training programme for teachers at partner schools,
• planning of the development of the 3^rd intellectual output of the project - STARS Online Platform (O3),
• presentation of the proposal of structure and content of the Concept for Astronomy Education Programme (O4).

The aim of the meeting was:

• to present created 1^st version of training programme for teachers to other project partners in order to get comments, suggested improvements and feedback for the authors (BAS, UWB),
• to propose and approve structure and timetable of the piloting phase and testing process of Training Programme for Teachers (O2) at partner schools (SK, CZ, BG),
• to introduce and approve design and structure of the Online Platform (O3),
• to introduce the proposal of the structure and content of the Concept for Astronomy Education Programme (O4) and then discuss it with the partners.

What is going to happen next in the project?

• development of the pilot version of the STARS Training Programme for Teachers (O2) and its testing among teachers in partner schools;
• development of the printed version of STARS Methodological Handbook for Teachers (O1) in 3 language versions (SVK, CZ, BG) and its distribution;
• preparation of the pilot version of the STARS Online Platform (O3);
• proposal of the structure and content of the first version of the Concept for Astronomy Education Programme (O4);
• 4^th Transnational project meeting of the partners in Pilsen.

Where can you find us?

More information about the project STARS and what is currently happening is available at our official webpage and at our Facebook profile:

• web: http://www.project-stars.com/
• FB: https://www.facebook.com/pg/project.stars.erasmus/posts/?ref=page_internal