Abstract

Contributed Talk - Splinter Education

Thursday, 15 September 2022, 16:35   (SFG 0140 / virtual Edu)

ESERO – Activities of the European Space Education Resource Office in Germany

Susanne Hüttemeister
Zeiss Planetarium Bochum

The European Space Education Resource Office (ESERO) is a joint project of the European Space Agency ESA and the German Aerospace Center DLR. It is operated by a consortium of ten institutions in Bochum, Cologne, and Bonn including Bochum planetarium, and is led and coordinated by the working group geomatics of the Institute of Geography at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. ESERO’s aim is the promotion of enthusiasm for STEM subjects among students of all age groups through space-related topics. Earth observation, remote sensing, crewed spaceflight, planetary missions, and astronomy all play equally important roles. This results in a wide variety of possible starting points for the development of various classroom activities.

The talk gives an overview of the current activities of ESERO Germany and the freely available teaching material. These include classical worksheets as well as interactive digital apps to be used in a classroom environment. Another focus lies on teacher trainings as well as participation in and organization of awareness raising events, including in-flight calls to the ISS. Contests like CanSat, a simulation of a real satellite, integrated within the volume and shape of a soft drink can, or the Moon Camp Challenge that asks student teams to plan a lunar station where astronauts can live, work and explore the lunar surface, complete the wide range of teaching resources offered.