Traditional visual aids used in astronomy outreach (such as 2D telescope images) can fail to effectively convey complex and abstract ideas to lay audiences. With the advent of impressive CGI images widely available in film and other media, these aids may also not meet their expectations or visually engage people. To address this, we have been employing 3D holograms in lieu of 2D images for astronomy-based outreach activities both in-person (pre-pandemic), and virtually since the start of the pandemic. Here we demonstrate how the reader can make and incorporate holograms in their own virtual talks (no budget required) and present the feedback we’ve received so far.

This contribution explores the reframing of promoting Astronomy as popular science, inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic. Through STEAM Innovation, integrating science and arts, such as Astro-Music and Space Art, would be a case in point of forced association. It redefines our methodology of Astronomy education and encourages the engagement of teachers from other disciplines. Supporting with user-centered design thinking, this pedagogy contributes effectively to the interactive teaching for solving real-life problems related to Astronomy.

The 2020 pandemics has brought about a revolution in education, thanks to the pervasiveness of online teaching. Contents, methods and techniques can now be rapidly shared across the globe. On the downside, a number of disciplines have been neglected or dropped altogether. Our paper aims to address the following questions: How has Astronomy in culture been affected? Why is it important to keep it alive? What are the solutions? We suggest that it has been dismissed for two reasons: first, it is perceived as a niche topic – some sort of erudite chatter about non-essential curiosities – that can be sacrificed in favour of more practical information; second, it is heavily culture-specific, meaning that it requires extra effort from the teachers, as it cannot be easily copied or translated from other sources.

During the last years, the amount of data has skyrocketed. As a consequence, the data has become more expensive to store than to generate. The storage needs for astronomical data are also following this trend. Storage systems in Astronomy contain redundant copies of data such as identical files or within sub-file regions. We propose the use of the Hadoop Distributed and Deduplicated File System (HD2FS) in Astronomy. HD2FS is a deduplication storage system that was created to improve data storage capacity and efficiency in distributed file systems without compromising Input/Output performance. HD2FS can be developed by modifying existing storage system environments such as the Hadoop Distributed File System. By taking advantage of deduplication technology, we can better manage the underlying redundancy of data in astronomy and reduce the space needed to store these files in the file systems, thus allowing for more capacity per volume.

In the past, Western academic astronomy has conceived in a very specific way its interests. However, in recent decades there has been a promising openness to the rest of the society, in the context of areas such as education, heritage and outreach. Despite this, there has not been an adequate scientific approach to do it, which would imply taking into account the social sciences and a truly interdisciplinary perspective. Here we want to develop the idea that this interdisciplinary approach already exists and it is called: Cultural Astronomy. Unfortunately, in the context of academic astronomy it has been only seen as a study of the “astronomies of others”, intended as previous stages or failed attempts of Western academic astronomy. We will seek to show that Cultural Astronomy, as a critical reflection on the social character of the astronomical knowledge, is key to the success of these opening efforts.

This contribution summarizes the reconstruction of historical constellations. It is based on studies of classics, philologies, history of science and history of art. In the given brevity, I can only sketch the strategic, scientific and educational reasons.

The “Turn on the Night” associated event had presentations on the latest dark skies protection issues considered by the IAU’s Dark and Quiet Skies working groups. Presentations were also made on dark skies education programs and cultural/scientific heritage.

Interdisciplinary and egalitarian, the School Workshops on Astronomy have been being in their educational mission since 14 years. Here we present the concept, methods, and some example results of that educational technique.

Our ancestors contemplated an inspiring night sky of science, philosophy, art … today, it is estimated that one third of the world’s population have never seen the Milky Way. The progressive degradation of the quality of the night sky due to an inappropriate use of the artificial light at night, as well to other sources of sky pollution, must be considered as the fundamental loss of a scientific, cultural and environmental heritage of humanity.

In this public talk we summarized the most relevant aspects of light pollution, the reasons for promoting good lighting to protect dark skies, and some of the initiatives at a global level that are being developed to preserve the darkness of the night sky.

Total solar eclipses are popular targets for amateur astronomers. At the same time, the eclipses are still scientifically important to observe the solar corona. Therefore, the eclipses are a good chance for amateurs to participate in scientific observations. In fact, some of amateur astronomers in Japan have been carried out scientific observations at the total solar eclipses collaborating with professional solar scientists over more than ten years. Some scientific results have been produced from the collaboration. We present here our collaborative activities as a practical example of citizen science.

The National Schools’ Observatory is an educational platform that offers free access to all schools in the UK and Ireland to the world’s largest robotic telescope, the Liverpool Telescope. The website offers activities, resources for teaching and importantly Go Observing, the telescope interface. The website receives 1.5 million visitors a year and has registered users in 80 countries. The next generation of robotic telescopes offer a unique opportunity to build in education, that is open and accessible to all.

We present here an edutainment strategy to communicate science and technology which is strongly based on personal motivation of the learner candidate: participants/players learn because they find it useful/interesting in order to achieve their own goals in some unique game. Our own goal is to capture young people’s attention in an immersive and collective storytelling experience within the framework of a role-playing game specifically designed for scientific literacy. The first experiences in public high schools of Argentina are reported here.

We here present the general outline of the project “Open up, Sky!”, a pilot project of astronomy education in a Juvenile detention institution in Sardinia, Italy. The project is still in progress, and we report here the first preliminary results.

Children in elementary and middle school learn fundamental concepts of science in their local language. There seems to be some discrepancies between what they learn in school and up-to-date terminologies because academic terminologies are usually updated and shared only in English by each specific academic society. We introduce the online dictionary called as “The Internet Encyclopedia of Astronomy” compiled and provided by the Astronomical Society of Japan as an efficient solution for such terminology problem.

SeneSTEM aims to bring Senegalese children and young people into contact with science, and – by extension – with the STEM disciplines (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) in a very accessible and illustrative way. We do this with concrete workshops and experiments, for both teachers and for groups of children and young people. In collaboration with different educational organisations in Senegal, among which the Senegalese Association for the Promotion of Astronomy, SeneSTEM ensures that all layers of the population are enthusiastic about science (education). Special attention is given to motivating girls for scientific careers. SeneSTEM actions are based on an international collaboration partly supported by development funds from the city of Antwerp and the University of Antwerp (Belgium).

Since January 2020, the International Astronomical Union has an Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE). The OAE, which joins the previously existing IAU Offices for Astronomy for Development (OAD), Astronomy Outreach (OAO) and Young Astronomers (OYA) is hosted at Haus der Astronomie, a center for astronomy education and outreach operated by the Max Planck Society in Heidelberg, Germany. This contribution outlines the mission of the OAE, the current state of the office, its background, mission and collaborative structure, as well as the activities that have already started or are planned for the future.

The European Exoplanets-A project aims to provide a comprehensive view of the nature of exoplanet atmospheres, through an interdisciplinary approach.

Exoplanets-A includes a knowledge server where we provide the scientific results and educational resources gathered and developed during the project. In this proceedings, we present two such educational resources: a MOOC and an augmented reality application.

Girls’ under-representation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education is deep rooted and puts a detrimental brake on progress towards sustainable development. Both education and gender equality are an integral part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2015, as distinct Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UNESCO Report: Cracking the code: Girls’ and women’s education in STEM provides a global snapshot of this underrepresentation and the factors behind it. The fight against stereotypes to ‘crack the code’, or to decipher the factors that hinder or facilitate girls’ and women’s participation in STEM (and particularly in Astronomy) education must take into account the persisting dichotomy between the so called two cultures.

Namibia is world-renowned for its incredibly dark skies by the astronomy community, and yet, the country is not well recognised as a dark sky destination by tourists and travellers. Forged by a collaboration between the Universities of Oxford and Namibia, together we are using astronomy as a means for capacity-building and sustainable socio-economic growth via educating tour guides and promoting dark sky tourism to relevant stakeholders.

In Thailand, annually there are more than 50 high school students presenting in the Thai Astronomical Conference (Student Session) and more than 20 high school students joining research activities mentored by their teachers and NARIT staff through the “Advanced Teacher Training” scheme. These opportunities offer a unique experience for students to learn various skills through proposing a research question, design research methodologies, acquire different knowledge conducting research, present and communicate their results and response to criticism. Data collection for this qualitative research study is conducted through interviews with the senior high school students who completed their research presentations, with a control group of students who did not have research-based learning experience but had other informal learning experiences such as planetarium visit, or after school astronomy activities. The study looks into students’ learning behaviour, attitude towards science, skills acquired for other subjects, interest in science careers.