School of Astronomy invites teachers to train in science and big data

With close to a thousand professionals trained throughout more than a decade of activities, the School of Astronomy for Teachers returns with its 11th edition, this time online and with calls to teachers from various parts of the world.

This nationally recognized initiative for its impact on teacher training and astronomical dissemination, comes to deliver and update the scientific knowledge of those professionals who work in the field of education, thus transferring this information to the smallest and youngest.

“The School has a long history and is a space for updating cutting-edge issues and a place of active learning for around 800 teachers over the years. They value it very much and with the virtual format we reach the entire country and even Latin American countries, which brings us great joy. We hope that in this version the call will be the same or more successful than previous years”, commented Pamela Henríquez Salinas, in charge of Titans dissemination and organizer of the activity.

This year’s theme: astronomy and big data

Thanks to the latest scientific advances in astronomical observation issues, the amount of data received from the various observatories, both terrestrial and orbital, has grown exponentially, broadening our understanding of various astrophysical phenomena and, at the same time, driving the development of information analysis technologies.

This is where big data, or large-scale amounts of data, becomes relevant. The management of large databases of information provides researchers with new discoveries or the improvement of previous observations.

“This year there will be many activities, opportunities to share experiences, practices. The idea is above all to propose exercises that they can take to the classroom and, at the same time, teach them about what has happened in astronomy in recent times”, added the astronomer and deputy director of CATA, Ezequiel Treister, promoter of the activity. for the year 2012 and who also installed the School Astronomical Congress.

The School of Astronomy for Teachers has the support of the Millennium Titans Nucleus, the CATA Center of Excellence, the Department of Astronomy UdeCthe Institute of Physics and Astronomy of the University of Valparaíso and the Institute of Astrophysics of the PUC.

Among the speakers at this new edition are the aforementioned Ezequiel Treister, Néstor Espinoza, who works directly with the James Webb telescope at the Space Telescope Institute in Baltimore, and the director of the Bachelor of Astronomy program at the Central University, Paulina Troncoso, among other renowned scientists.

The applications for those interested start on January 12 and conclude on the 22nd of the same month at 29:59. The link to sign up is https://forms.gle/8cBQRhZU2eJKZoG78.

The results will be published on January 23 at 7:00 p.m. in https://escueladeprofesores.cl/. Classes will be via Zoom on January 26 and 27.