Thanks to this project more than 80,000 students from all the Canary Islands have had the opportunity to observe the Sun in a safe but spectacular way through the three solar telescopes which have travelled around the whole archipelago, spending a period of a week in each of the participating educational centres. These telescopes, Ra, Helios, or Tonatiuh, have visited 141 educational centres in the seven islands during the last two school years.
The enthusiastic participation of 307 secondary school teachers, who have collaborated actively in the project has been essential. They took part in the specific training course given by solar physicists of the IAC. Pere Lluis Pallé, Antonio Eff-Darwich, Héctor Socas, and Marian Martínez, the astrophotographer Daniel López, and the project coordinator Alfred Rosenberg, as well as in numerous activities related to the project developed by the centres : astrophotography, exhibitions, presentations, science weeks, etc.
During the present school year, in the framework of the project, a competition “Canary Islanders under the same sky” was organized under four headings: scientific, journalistic, artistic, and literary. Today, Friday 19th July at 10.30 a press conference will be organized at which the winners will be presented.
As their prize, the winning students and teachers will, during the 19th 29th and 21st of June, be offered a wide programme of activities, coordinated by the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canaries, which includes a visit to the Instrumentation Division of its Headquarters, and visits to the Teide and Roque de los Muchachos Observatories.
At the Teide Observatory there is a planned visit to the GREGOR (the largest solar telescope in Europe), to the Pyramid (the Solar Laboratory, birthplace of helioseismology) and to QUIJOTE (a telescope which observes the universe in microwaves) as well as a great opportunity to make night-time observations with the IAC-80 telescope. At the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory they will also make a night-time observation, they will visit the Gran Telescopio CANARIAS (the largest optical-infrared telescope in the world) and the MAGIC telescop. Their programme also includes a tour of the “Lights of the Universe” exhibition which is presently on view at the exhibition hall of the Canarian Cabrera Pinto Institute, as well as a visit to the Museum of Science and the Cosmos of Museums of Tenerife.
The Schools which are the winner of the competition, this time, at the Garoé Secondary School (el Hierro), the Tafira-Nelson Mandela Secondary School (Gran Canaria), the Santa Brígida Secondary School (Gran Canaria) the Valle de los Nueve Secondary School (Gran Canaria) the Echeyde III School (Tenerife) and the Jandía Secondary School (Fuerteventura).
This project was made possible thanks to the collaboration of the Binter Canarias company, the Elder Museum of Science and Technology, the Cabildo (Island Council) of La Palma, the Museum of Science and the Cosmos, of Museums of Tenerife, and the Department of Education, Universities, and Sustainability of the Regional Government of the Canaries. It has also received funding from the “Severo Ochoa” and “SOLARNET” programmes, developed within the IAC.
