THE SONS OF THE SUN Erasmus Project

Project Title

THE SONS OF THE SUN

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for Schools Only

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Research and innovation; Energy and resources; Natural sciences

Project Summary

Astronomy is the oldest and the widest area of science so almost every dicipline has a relationhip with it. Biology, Physics, Maths, Geography, Religion, History . it is really quite obvious that by holding ASTRONOMY in the centre of our studies we will have chance to follow countless ways. Besides the project idea realized a very big demand and lack of our (Turkish) education system and it helped students and teachers to be equipped with knowledge and love of Astronomy as well. The testing period helped the implementation and the sustainability of the project not just among the tested students but also on an organisational level. Astronomy is one of the few scientific fields that interacts directly with society. . Four schools from four different countries aimed to work together beyond borders, languages, religions for a common purpose. The aim of the Project was that the students develop individually strategies and that they aquire knowledge about the history of astronomy by investigating answers to questions like;
• What necessary changes were made to observing thoughout astronomy
• What factors influence the astronomy
• How was long-distance stars were observed
• What our solar system looks like
• The influence of discoviries on our everyday life
• To draw attention to light pollution
• To develop mathematical and basic competences in science and tecnology
• To improve digital competence by exchanging e mails and using internet as a main source of information
• To improve knowledge of the Earth and the planets around us by modeling the solar system

By designing their own cameras we wanted our student to understand the logic of making models and by their handmade cameras to observe the sky. How big is BIG and How small is SMALL? It was important to let them to find out their answers by their own.Pupils observed the sky by night and day. we held international Project meetings. In these meetings students had the chace to develop their English knowledge and they had a chance to hear different languages. It drew their attenttion on different languages. Another important aspect of the Project was the intercultural learning.We believe that the activities would provide opportunities for increasing students’ basic skills and transversal key competences For teachers the chance to work with colleagues across Europe was inspirational for both new and established members of staff.
In the project;
we raised an awareness of Astronomy.
We had the knowledge of the Sun,
We searched for the structure, movement and the energy of the solar system
We measured and compared the diameter of the sun from different countries with the pin hole camera
They got familiar with the universe based on the Sun via observations and telescopes
They differentiated the importance of the Sun for the living creatures on the Earth
They realized where and how we generally make use of our most important and main renewable energy ( Solar energy) technologies use the sun’s energy and light to provide heat, light, hot water, electricity, and even cooling, for homes, businesses, and industry. There are a variety of technologies that have been developed to take advantage of solar energy.
They tried to understand how our anchestors were able to learn about the time by using sundial and for this purpose to build a sundial in our school garden.
We maintained a perspective drawing of the movements of the Sun along the whole year: An analemmatic sundial is a particular kind of horizontal sundial in which the shadow-casting object is vertical, and is moved depending on the date, or to be more precise, depending on the declination of the sun on a given day. The time was read from the dial by nothing where the shadow cast by the vertical pin crosses hour points laid out on an ellipse.
After drawing an analemmatic sundial all the participants learned
The sun is going by from different points
Why the shadow lenght is changing
How the seasons are formed,
How the day and night periods differ along the year.
The activities taken within the project were;
Analemma/ Analemmatic Sundial/ Pin Hole Camera/ Observation of Sun Spot and Solar Flare/ Solar System Video, Drama, etc/Sky Observation/ Solar Eclipse/ Aurora
Sunflower and Dried Fruit/ Solar Energy Experiments/ CERN Axion Solar Telescope (CAST) http://cast.web.cern.ch/CAST/ Solar Dynamics Observatory(SDA)/NASA/Seminaars/ Workshops related to Astronomy/Exhibitions
Thanks to Astronomy and our project THE SONS OF THE SUN we aimed to reach as many students, teachers and even the parents as possible and share our knowledge of astronomy. and tried to take a small but an important step to draw the students attention on Science and on Astronomy.
Carl SAGAN says “The size and age of the Cosmos are beyond ordinary human understanding. Lost somewhere between immensity and eternity is our tiny planetary home.” We tried to take a small but an important step with this project.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 88902,44 Eur

Project Coordinator

KUSADASI MAKBULE HASAN UCAR ANADOLU LISESI & Country: TR

Project Partners

• SCOALA GIMNAZIALA COTOFENII DIN DOS
• Aleksandro Puskino vidurine mokykla
• I Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. Mikolaja Kopernika