To celebrate World Space Week 2018, in Thessaloniki, Greece, Antatolia College Center for STEM Education hosted a Space and Astronomy program during the weekend of October 6-7.

During this weekend program researchers from the University of Leiden Space and Astronomy Society and from Aristotle University Aeronautics and Space team joined the Anatolia College STEM team  in order to design and present space related STEM activities to elementary and high school students.

Students were divided in age groups and guided through activities from Universe Awareness (UNAWE) ( http://www.unawe.org/activity/).  They also had the opportunity to design, make and test their own gliders and talk about aeronautics and space crafts.  Dr Theodoros Karapantsios, Professor of Chemistry and National Representative of Greece in the European Space Agency and Dr Nikolaos K. Spyrou Professor of Astronomy i nspired students for their presentations.

The pictures are the author’s own.

The idea of the weekend program was conceived during Scientix conference 2018 that Dr Ellias Kalambokis,  Antatolia College STEM Coordinator and Scientix Ambassador Iro Koliakou attended.  There they had the opportunity to meet with representatives of the University of Leiden Space and Astronomy Society and with World Space Weeks Vice President for Education and Coordinators, Armengol Torres.

This is a wonderful example of how Scientix promotes Europe-wide collaboration among STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) teachers and education researchers. These collaborations provide great opportunities for students and have a great impact on their learning outcomes and their engagement to Science.

Author: Iro Koliakou, Scientix Ambassdor

Tags: Anatolia College, European Space Agency, greece, UNAWE, University of Leiden, World Space Week, WSW2018