On 13 March 2015, UNAWE Croatia organised their first workshop and lecture for the youngest students of Primary school Pantovcak in Zagreb, Croatia. We are very pleased to welcome our 63rd network country UNAWE Croatia!
With the help of older astronomy students (10 to 15 years old), UNAWE Croatia held a short lecture and presentation about space, the Milky Way, the Solar System and fascinating facts about the planets. After answering all the kids’ questions, there was a short interactive lecture about the Moon, where both the children and the teachers asked questions.
Students learned about the Moon’s surface, and later tried making craters themselves by throwing the balls of different sizes and mass in flour to see how throwing heavier objects results in bigger and deeper craters. The lessons about the Moon used the activities from the UNAWE Universe in a Box: 1.4 Lunar Landscape and 1.5 Reflecting Moon.
The organisers found that young students are very motivated and eager to learn more about astronomy. National Coordinator of UNAWE Croatia, Danijela Takač says: "It is really important to start introducing young students to science, since more and more students are choosing not to pursue a career in science because they find it “too hard” and ”too complicated to learn”. By motivating young students and kindergartners to learn science the fun way we are showing them that science is important, not so hard to learn, interesting and hopefully motivating some of them to become the future astronomers and scientists."
Danijela Takač is a STEM teacher who has been teaching astronomy and participating in national astronomy competitions with her colleague and close friend Sandra Ivković since they started teaching 8 years ago. Every year they organize a number of workshops and lectures on astronomy as well as their traditional get together “A star party and workshop” for the World Space Week. Danijela has also been a member of the national board for astronomy competition.
In April and May UNAWE Croatia is planning to visit second and third grade students, kindergarden and in June they will hold a teacher training.
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