The teams Le squadre Οι ομάδες

Lyceo Classico Ugo Foscolo – Italy

and 2nd Professional School of Nea Smyrni – Greece

present:

Young Astronomers II : The Space Conquest
(from the ancient scientists to today's discoveries)!

For second year, students from our schools, work together to conquest space!

But how did we decide to work on a topic like this? On 2005 we started a project under the title "Young Astronomers: the stars, their myths and the ancient theories". It was a very successful project and we really enjoyed it! Both students and teachers worked together and produced a fine outcome that gave us the courage to go on and start a new project! Yes on 2006-2007, we decide to conquest space!!!

We all know that from early times people have been fascinated by the patterns made by the brilliant stars they saw in the sky. Early astronomers tried to explain the movements of the Sun, Moon, stars and planets, but they could not see very far into space. Now astronomers have huge telescopes and satellites in space, to help them unravel the mysteries of the Universe.

Astronomy is often called the oldest science. It is easy to see why, if you have ever looked at the sky on a very clear, dark night, in a place where are no city lights. It is an amazing sight consisting of thousands of stars, some much brighter than others, and the pale strip of the Milky Way across the middle. Before we had artificial streetlights, people were much more familiar with the night sky. They watched the Moon change it's shape from a thin crescent to a full circle and back again every few weeks. In ancient times people thought that the Sun, Moon and stars, were gods!

The patterns made by the stars do not change. Thousands of years ago people in places like China, Egypt and Mesopotamia imagined the stars made pictures in the sky. They named the star groups for animals or their gods or the heroes of their stories. We still use some of their names today for these star patterns or "constellations".

Some of the sights in the sky were very frightening to people who did not understand them. Some times a bright new star with a long shining tail appeared from nowhere. We know that this "hairy" star was a comet, but in those days people thought it was a warning of disaster. Equally terrifying was when the Sun disappeared in the middle of the day. It was an eclipse, just the Moon blocking out the Sun's light.

On July 20th, 1969, the first human walked on the Moon, marking a turning point in our exploration of space. In Neil Armstrong's now legendary phrase, it was "...one small step for a man and one giant leap for mankind". Since then our knowledge of space has increased enormously, with such missions as Voyager spacecraft sent to explore the outer planets and the Hubble Space Telescope, which has provided many new and fascinating images of outer space. Once the nations of the world have learned how to live and work together in space on a regular basis and the world economy improves, we should be ready for the ultimate adventure: sending humans to Mars. Now more than ever before, it is time to look toward the heavens and soar like eagles, reaching out for knowledge and inspiration in the far reaches of the universe!

So, wearing a spacesuit or not, enter our imaginary spacecraft and travel through space and time to conquest space with us!

6...5...4...3...2...1...ignition!

A few words about our project:

The duration of our project was about a school year. We started on October 2006 and the project was completed on September 2007. We use our languages, Italian and Greek, and also English.

Understanding the nature was and is, a main subject for scientists and for simple people too. In fact, understanding and conquering space, is a hard long way for humanity. Through centuries, many inventions and discoveries were made. And the target of all this was high in the sky: the stars, the Sun, the Moon and the planets. Before the first man stepped on the Moon, many ancient scientists, from Plato and Pythagoras, Archimedes and Plutarch, Aristarcus of Samos and Eratostenes, to Galileo and many others, helped to open the way for today's and tomorrow's generations, to the stars!
In this project we got familiar with the scientific thought of our ancestors and learn about modern invention and discoveries on the conquest of space. And through this we understood the common roots and the common future of humanity.

The aims of the project were: Acquaintance with astronomy, ancient scientists, early and modern inventions and discoveries about space. Using tools in creation of web pages and presentations. Getting familiar with a foreign language. Development of communication skills, collaboration, responsibility and consistency of programming, research, gathering and evaluating sources and knowledge.

How we worked: we created groups and subgroups, charge projects such as searching information (internet, libraries, interview scientists) about the most known ancient scientists and their theories and modern inventions and discoveries about the conquest of space. We made the translations. We published the material in a web page with photographs. We communicated by e-mail and chat to exchange information, to compare the process of the research and decide all together how the new web site would be or how we would structure the presentations. During the project we arranged activities like a visit to an observatory, watch a documenter, paint and make constructions like a spaceship and a satellite, and the model of the Solar System which you may see in the section "Activities".

The outputs are this Web page with the projects, prints of material in the languages of the two schools and English and a cd-rom with the presentations.

The project was coordinated by our teachers, Mr. Antonio Cupellini and Mrs. Vassiliki Niarrou.

And now it's time to introduce ourselves!

First, the students of class 2b of Lyceo Classico Ugo Foscolo, Albano, Italy: