Communicating Astronomy with the Public 2005
Ian Robson, Lars Lindberg Christensen (eds.)
Pages 266-278

< Prev. abstract          Table of Contents            Next Abstract >

The Venus Transit 2004 (VT-2004) Programme: The Exceptional Impact of a Unique Public Science Discovery Project

Abstract:

We report on a major pan-European educational activity: the Venus Transit 2004 Public Science Discovery Programme. The key objectives were to use the 2004 Transit as a vehicle for disseminating knowledge about the Solar System, for raising awareness of exoplanet research, to enable the public to re-enact the historical measurement of the Sun-Earth distance, to raise public appreciation of the scientific method and to collectively obtain a basic scientific result based on geographically distributed observations. This very successful pilot project encompassed the development of an extensive set of teaching materials for schools, an effective web-based information and reporting system, observational activities as well as a video contest and a thorough post-event evaluation during a final meeting.

Read full article (PDF 280 KB)