“Jupiter, Jupiter,…!”, sixty children aged four to six shout happily. They are sitting under the dome the planetarium at the House of Astronomy, as they fly through the Solar System. Also sitting in the planetarium are several members of the EU-Universe Awareness (EU-UNAWE) international team, Stefano D'Orillia from the European Commission in Brussels and Ernst van Groningen of Uppsala University in Sweden, the two reviewers of the EU Universe Awareness Programme.
The evaluation of the FP7 project EU-UNAWE took place in Heidelberg, Germany in April 2013. The EU-UNAWE team presented the results and achievements of the project so far to the two evaluators — and what better way to do this than to show EU-UNAWE in action? So, EU-UNAWE Germany invited a large group of young children from underprivileged nurseries around the House of Astronomy.
After the trip through the Solar System the children were told two different stories about the constellation Orion; one told from the perspective of Greek children and the other from the perspective of South African children. The children were amused to learn that the same constellation looks different from each country; in the eyes of the Greek it looks upside down in South Africa and vice versa!
In the end all participants went home very pleased with how the day had played out: the EU-UNAWE team, the children and even the evaluators!
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