How come school was never this interesting in my day? Students around Ireland will be able to enjoy the wonders of space as the International Year of Astronomy unfolds, thanks to a joint venture between Blackrock Castle Observatory in Cork and Promethean, a company that makes interactive whiteboards, writes Claire O'Connell.
By logging on to the observatory’s website, more than 1,000 schools with the whiteboards will be able to stream videos of events and footage to mark 2009 as the 400th anniversary of Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei turning his telescope to the skies.
“We send the schools a link and then they log on with the children in front of the whiteboard and they can see images from telescopes all over the world, including the one at Blackrock,” explains Clair McSweeney, facilities manager at Blackrock Castle Observatory. The whiteboards will also stream workshops into the classroom about Mars and the formation of the cosmos, she says.
The observatory will launch its programme for 2009 on Friday, February 6th at an international exhibition of astronomical drawings, In the Footsteps of Galileo.
But you don’t have to be in school to enjoy the heavenly spectacles, links will also be available on the observatory’s website and through mailouts to their network for anyone else who wants to view events on their computer. Keep track on the website www.bco.ie.