This Tuesday, a group of Saharawi schoolchildren from the "Holidays in Peace" program, accompanied by their host families from Tenerife and Fuerteventura, have become real space explorers thanks to a day of outreach activities organized by the Scientific Communication and Outreach Unit (UC3) of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), together with the Asociación Canaria de Amistad con el Pueblo Saharaui (ACAPS) and the Museo de la Ciencia y el Cosmos (MCC, Museums of Tenerife).
This action has been carried out in the framework of the summer activities of the Amanar project. With talks, workshops, films and guided tours, both at the Museum and at the IAC headquarters in La Laguna, the little astronomers have learned about the universe in a fun and educational way.
The day began with a welcome to the MCC by its director, Antonia Varela, followed by a participatory talk on astronomy given by Nayra Rodríguez, an astrophysicist and outreach specialist from the IAC, coordinator of the activity and member of Amanar since its launch in 2019.
Afterwards, the attendees enjoyed a Planetarium session with the film "We Are Stars", a multi-awarded production that explains the secrets of our cosmic chemistry, from the formation of hydrogen atoms to the molecules necessary for life.
The screening was followed by two workshops: one on the Sun-Earth-Moon system, developed by Nayra Rodríguez, and another on rocket physics, given by IAC astrophysicists and outreach specialists Irene Puerto and Alejandra Goded.
At mid-morning, the attendees visited the IAC headquarters, near the Museum, where they were welcomed by the head of UC3, Verónica Martín, and other IAC staff, and were offered breakfast in the cafeteria.
The day continued at the MCC with a guided tour of several didactic modules led by the Museum's educator Andrea Rodríguez. Afterwards, the attendees visited the Museum freely and, finally, they were given some outreach materials.
The activity has also counted with the participation of Alberto Negrín, Persida Arzola and Juan Antonio González, coordinators of ACAPS, plus the collaboration of Pedro Bento, planetarium technician of the MCC; Iván Jiménez, scientific journalist of the IAC; and Ely Ould Hamdi, who has translated into Hassaniya, a dialect spoken by the Saharawi population.
Amanar is an astronomy outreach project that seeks to share this science with the Saharawi population of the refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria. The initiative pays special attention to schoolchildren, young people and teachers to awaken their interest in science, to value the Saharawi knowledge of the sky, to contribute to strengthen their resilience and to foster the feeling of unity under the same sky.
The project was born in 2019 as a collaboration between the international organization GalileoMobile and ACAPS, with the support of the IAC and the Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), in addition to other collaborating institutions and associations.
The activity in Tenerife has been funded by the IAC, Museos de Tenerife (Cabildo de Tenerife), the OAD and OAO offices of the IAU and Europlanet.
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