Viaje al Universo is Back in the Classrooms

November 11, 2022

Gemini/NOIRLab flagship STEM event in Chile returns with a hybrid version for students

With the lifting of Covid-19 restrictions earlier this year, the Gemini/NOIRLab flagship STEM education program in Chile, Viaje al Universo, returns to classrooms 14–18 November 2022 as a hybrid event featuring three face-to-face and two virtual sessions. 

Over the course of five days, representatives from NOIRLab and AURA in Chile will visit the German School, the Gabriela Mistral High School, and the Altovalsol Intercultural School to conduct various fun and engaging learning activities with students. These activities will share the exciting discoveries made by the telescopes that NOIRLab and AURA operate on Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón in Chile, Kitt Peak in Arizona, and Maunakea in Hawai‘i.

This year, Viaje al Universo will be led by scientists who work at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, International Gemini Observatory, and SOAR as well as the under-construction Vera C. Rubin Observatory. The program will also collaborate with scientists from the Department of Astronomy of the Universidad de La Serena, the Department of Astronomy of the Universidad Central, the University Antonio Nariño,Colombia, and also with specialists from the Las Campanas Observatory, which is owned and operated by the Carnegie Institution for Science.

The activities include face-to-face workshops about constellations, how to build a homemade spectroscope, and workshops about the Solar System and its features. One of the newest activities is a workshop about satellites, in which children can build a satellite model using candies and cookies. In addition, students will be able to understand the importance of light — the entire electromagnetic spectrum — in astronomy. They also will use special filters to discover secret messages in images that they paint themselves.

For those who would like to participate in Viaje al Universo, but are not from the participating schools, these activities will be available virtually starting at 10 a.m. (CLST) on Thursday, 17 November and going until Friday, 18 November via NOIRLab’s Youtube or Facebook Live channels.

As a traditional highlight each year, students will be able to participate in a career panel on astronomy to learn about the career opportunities and jobs that keep the observatories in Chile running. This panel is a remarkable opportunity to meet first-hand the people who make it possible to operate these huge telescopes and find out how to be part of the team at an astronomical observatory.

To learn more about the program and list of activities, you can check the event program on our website and start this wonderful Journey to the Universe.

More information 

NSF’s NOIRLab(National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory), the US center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy, operates the International Gemini Observatory(a facility of NSF, NRC–Canada, ANID–Chile, MCTIC–Brazil, MINCyT–Argentina, and KASI–Republic of Korea), Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), and Vera C. Rubin Observatory(operated in cooperation with the Department of Energy’s SLACNational Accelerator Laboratory). It is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with NSF and is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. The astronomical community is honored to have the opportunity to conduct astronomical research on Iolkam Du’ag (Kitt Peak) in Arizona, on Maunakea in Hawai‘i, and on Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón in Chile. We recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that these sites have to the Tohono O'odham Nation, to the Native Hawaiian community, and to the local communities in Chile, respectively.

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