Resumen:

"Frontier Astronomy" and "Frontier Physics" are a series of activities for the secondary classroom that aims to share teaching techniques and strategies for the inclusion of modern and contemporary astronomy topics in the classroom, both in face-to-face classes and online. The activities are designed to be easily attached to regular physics or astronomy courses, without the need to change the curriculum. \\ \\ The activities address current issues such as dark matter, exoplanets, the expansion of the universe, cosmology, black holes, gravitational waves, among others. The activities were developed by the renowned Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics of Canada, and translated and adapted into Portuguese and Spanish by the ICTP-SAIFR (South American Institute for Fundamental Research), a physics center associated with Abdus Salam ICTP (Trieste , Italy) and associated with the Institute of Theoretical Physics of the University of São Paulo, Brazil (IFT-UNESP). \\ \\ In this presentation we will make a brief summary of the didactic methodological proposal, and we will give some examples of concrete activities such as those that we have been presenting for two years, in collaboration with the ICTP-SAIFR, to secondary school teachers from all over Latin America, both virtual and face-to-face. \\ \\ References: \\ \\ *Resources from the Perimeter Institute for teaching physics and astronomy in secondary schools, translated into Spanish. \\ (https://outreach.ictp-saifr.org/traducciones-al-espanol). \\ *Frontier Physics in Spanish – Online 2021-2023. \\ (http://ictp-saifr.org/salaespanol). \\ *Frontier Physics in Spanish – Face-to-face - Montevideo 2023 Edition. \\ (https://fisicamartin.blogspot.com/2023/05/ictp-saifr-fisica-de-border-edicion.html). \\ *ICTP-SAIFR Summer Course for Secondary School Teachers – 2022 - Gravitational Waves and LIGO. \\ (https://outreach.ictp-saifr.org/cursoveraoprofessores/cursoveraoprofessores2022). \\ * ICTP-SAIFR Summer Course for Secondary School Teachers – 2023 - Cosmology. \\ (https://fisicamartin.blogspot.com/2023/01/iii-curso-de-verano-del-ictp-saifr-2023.html).

Resumen:

The use of digital technologies combined with an interdisciplinary approach that connects the periodic table to Astronomy can provide students a broader and more meaningful understanding of the stellar nucleosynthesis of the chemical elements, thus becoming an effective strategy to motivate them to learn this subject. This work presents an educational digital game written in Python titled "The Periodic Table According to Cosmochemistry" (PTAC), designed to playfully address the synthesis of chemical elements in the context of Astronomy. Therefore, this work presents the development of the game and an analysis of its effectiveness, based on the feedback of 53 players who tested the game. The game was played by students enrolled in Elementary School, High School, and Higher Education classes, aiming to obtain a wide diversity of student feedback. Questionnaires containing open-ended and multiple-choice questions were used to collect data from these students. These questionnaires were made available both digitally and in printed form and data analysis was conducted qualitatively and quantitatively. The results obtained provided evidence that this game is an effective educational resource, capable of motivating students, promoting learning, and providing a positive gaming experience. We also present the strengths and weaknesses of the game, as well as possible future improvements and the optimal age range for its application as a teaching resource. Based on the findings of this research, the use of educational digital games, such as PTAC, can be a promising approach to improve the teaching of the stellar nucleosynthesis of the chemical elements. By integrating Chemistry, Astronomy, and digital technologies, educators have the opportunity to spark students' interest and encourage their pursuit of knowledge in a more meaningful way.

Resumen:

We present the experience of teaching an astronomy course at the introductory level at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP). Students attend theory sessions alongside practical experiences observing remotely using the Las Cumbres Observatory 40 cm telescopes. This is done using the ASTROLAB (Starlight in the university lab) tutorial, a project of the Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) of the IAU. With this, we try to make up for the few opportunities that undergraduate Peruvian students have to do observational astronomy, due to the few astronomical facilities that exist in the country. The students are introduced to scientific research methods as they go through the same steps astronomers do when preparing and doing an observing program. Students learn how to plan observations, submit proposals, process their data and analyze their results using astronomy software and Virtual Observatory (VO) tools on images obtained from remote telescopes of Las Cumbres Observatory. This teaches students to develop teamwork abilities, understand the complexity and ambiguity of empirical work, develop practical skills, error analysis, defend their results both in written and oral form, and most importantly: develop critical thinking.

Resumen:

The volume and complexity of astronomical data continues to grow as the current generation of surveys come online (PanSTARRS, Dark Energy Survey, VISTA). Astronomers will need to work with giga, tera and even petabytes of data in real time (LSST). This poses the challenges of developing and using new tools for data discovery, access, and analysis. At the same time, there are new opportunities for interdisciplinary research in applied mathematics, statistics, machine learning, crowd-sourcing, etc. Astronomy provides a sand-box where scientists can come together from diverse fields to address common challenges within the "Big Data" paradigm. In response, since 2013 the AURA/NOIRLab observatory has implemented the “La Serena School for Data Science: tools for Data-Driven sciences”. In this contribution we present our initiative, which is developed annually at the AURA campus in La Serena, Chile. Each August, the school receives 32 students and 10 expert professors for 10 days, following an intensive program of introductory classes with an important component of hands-on learning. This is materialized mainly by the development of group projects, where students solve complex problems in groups, applying what they have learned and guided by the teachers. Participants come from various countries such as the US (NSF-funded), Chile, and other Latin American countries such as Ecuador, Brazil, Mexico or Colombia. Students from different disciplines are encouraged to participate, including (but not limited to) astronomy, physics, computer science, statistics, mathematics, biology medical informatics. Finally, we discuss the opportunities that this school can offer to students in Latin American institutions.

Resumen:

More than 360,000 students at UNAM stopped attending regular courses due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, it is known that a fraction of the students abandon their studies for various reasons, including economic ones. To reduce the impact of such abandonment we proposed to reinforce and make more attractive the strategies of remote or online learning. We present the results of a joint project in collaboration with the National Optical Observatory at San Pedro Martir, Mexico (OAN-SPM) and the Institute of Astronomy academic campus in Mexico City aiming to attack this problem that consisted of two parts: 1. We proposed opening the access to the remote 0.84m telescope of the OAN-SPM and its instrumentation for the basic physics and astronomy courses, via internet and eventually at the classroom site. We revised the curricula of various courses looking to innovate on the teaching and learning and exposing the students to a more meaningful and profound knowledge covering concepts and topics. Our goal is to gradually replace some of the in classroom practices and traditional exercises with new interactive practices with the participation of teachers. 2. We complement the impact of our proposal by generating new excercises exploiting the content of digital databases of various international astronomical projects such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV-V.

Resumen:

This work presents a proposal for analog simulation enabling the generation of light curves for simulated transit events of exoplanetary systems in a straightforward manner. The setup is established for two exoplanetary systems, referred to as System A and System B, yielding a size estimation error margin of 1.5\% for System A and 4.25\% for System B. The frequency spectrum of the time series signals from both systems provides a reliable estimation of their respective orbital periods within the setup. The high sampling rate of the light sensor integrated into an average mobile phone (100 ms) allows for a scaling of 1 second = 1 day in testing, aligning the framework of the proposed experiment with the scientific data used in the study of exoplanetary light curves. Due to the uncertainty associated with the measured fluxes for each obtained light curve ($\approx$1e-7 lx), the setup proves efficient and could be employed to undertake more rigorous investigations, accounting for improved analytical criteria and better-controlled laboratory conditions. Furthermore, the experimental setup has sparked considerable interest in pilot test's due to its interactivity, rendering it an enriching educational resource. This analog simulation presents an excellent opportunity to impart captivating concepts concerning exoplanets and the methods astronomers employ to study these distant systems. The light curve generated during the transit of exoplanets furnishes vital information about their physical and orbital characteristics. Through this low-cost educational tool, students can explore and comprehend the measurement of the semi-major axis, orbital period, and exoplanet-to-star size ratio of the simulated systems. Finally, the setup facilitates the formulation of inquiries that foster learning and understanding of key topics related to exoplanets and light curves, stimulating curiosity and active engagement in the educational process.