The city of Heidelberg in Germany played host to an international astronomical celebration when EU-UNAWE Germany invited a group of 65 children from 10 different local nursery and primary schools to take part in the German-South African Science Year.
South Africa and Germany are united by a long standing, successful partnership. Germany has a great deal to offer in the fields of technology and applied sciences and South Africa is a research location of unprecedented value, attracting people from over the world to conduct research in the fields of astronomy, water, climate, energy, biodiversity, health and education. The two countries organised the German-South African Year of Science, running from April 2012 to April 2013, to celebrate and reinforce their collaboration.
As part of the celebrations, EU-UNAWE national project coordinators from both Germany and South Africa, along with a selection of special guests, pulled together to arrange a day of multi-cultural astronomy fun for children on 19 October, at the planetarium of Haus der Astronomie in Heidelberg.
The day kicked off with a Voyage through Space, which taught the kids where both their own country and South Africa are on the planet earth. The show also demonstrated the problems of light pollution by showing how bright the world shone at night. Then a Voyage through the Solar System introduced the children to our neighbouring worlds. The tour finished with a South Africa story about the Orion constellation and some native African songs, which got the children clapping, singing and even dancing along!
Later the group was treated to a planetarium show presented by special guest Thebe Medupe, a famous South Africa astrophysicist and founding director of Astronomy Africa. The show introduced the skies of the Southern hemisphere and South African astronomer and renowned storyteller, Temba Matomela, told tales of the famous constellations, the moon and the Pleiades by South. Another South African guest was Nadeem Oozeer, a professional astronomer working on the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project. Oozeer gave the children a talk about the exciting new project which will be co-hosted by South Africa.
The celebrations finished in style, with music courtesy of the African Choir of Heidelberg and the South African guests. The event was a resounding success with both teachers and students alike expressing their enjoyment of the activities and declaring how much they had learned about the southern skies and South African folklore, many of the children even requested translations of the South African tales!
To participant in the German-South African Year of Science 2012/2013 visit the website here.
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