Introduction

Education is training, part of which is being able to handle information. At meetings such as this, one learns new ways to teach and to adapt ideas to one's culture in a way they can have a greater influence on the lay person (Pasachoff and Percy, 1990; Percy, 1996). A reason to promote science popularization is to give people a chance to experience the pleasure of understanding.

Traditionally written materials and planetariums were the ideal way to convey astronomical knowledge and to start an interest in science. Now the media, WWW and interactive exhibits are having a great influence on the lay person. Science centres are an important aid for education; they present astronomy in an attractive way, which is sometimes difficult to do at school. It is easier to teach something that pupils enjoy.

This paper will focus on science centres in Mexico; some of the ideas that we have used could help other developing nations with their projects. In order to grasp the differences between other countries and Mexico, I shall only mention that the average education is five years in large cities nad two in the country; 78 million, out of 95 million inhabitants, never buy a book, and only 1 million purchase more than 10 books per year; the introductory astronomy course that is taught to over 200,000 students per year in the USA is only taught to about 60 pupils per year at our National University.

We shall describe some of the activities that science centres can provide in order to aid public understanding of astronomy and the ways in which several very small museums have been installed in Mexico.