Ana Torreres Campos

1-1 Firstly I designed Astronomy related instructional material to let the children marvel and play. All of the classes were intended to marvel them with picture of the universe, be enjoyable by playing games, participating in contests, drawing or creating crafts so the children would be having fun while learning about Astronomy and Astrophysics. The material allowed the students to acknowledge the properties of the solar system bodies, about the formation and evolution of stars and galaxies. Some activities were inside the classroom like constructing space ships, drawing monsters from planets of different types, while some were in exterior, letting them to jump and run and play. 2.- Astronomy and Astrophysics themed activities allow the students to reinforce the knowledge they learn from other classes like mat (while comparing physical parameters of the Solar System planets), natural sciences (while making a moon observation journal), oral expression (while designing material of their own to present what they like about a specific planet), language (while spelling the name of the planets and relating them to their friend's names), arts and engineering (while building structures and identifying a perspective from which a constellation could be defined) and sports (while jumping the scaled distance of the planets in the Solar System) 3.- The classes were designed as to allow the children to appropriate Astronomy and realise their connection to it. They learned about the zodiac constellations and identified their birth constellation. I also tout them about the importance of engineering and the Hubble Space Telescope, they even made Bday cards to the HST. I presented them with their unique HST 30 anniversary Bday picture. They enjoyed video chatting with their friends showing their birthday day related astronomical image. I also encourage them to compare their own evolution as humans with that of the Sun. As well, and very important, they were encouraged to develop Astronomy themed board games that we could use in class 4.- Teaching Astronomy is guiding students to treasure and love and all and everything in the Universe while overcoming any difficulty they find in life. During classes different options of materials were allowed so everyone, indistinctly of their physical or intellectual disabilities would be able to perform class activities in a joyful and empowering way. On our last class party a home-made space candy dish with jelly constellations, chocolates as rocky planets, marshmallows as gaseous planets. One of my students was so inspired about moon landing that, in his art class he made a "Day of the Death" Mexican holiday sculpture about a Mexican astronaut that will someday lay foot on the Moon. For example, using clay to build galaxy sculpture instead of drawing and cutting with scissors. My students and myself learned to adapt to virtual classes due to COVID-19, to emotionally connect with each other using technology. Some of the advantages of virtual classes was the possibility to invite professional astronomers from different parts of the world to be interviews by the 10 years old students, providing role models for the and allowing them to peek into what means to be as astrophysicist. This experience in teaching Astronomy as a formal class allowed me to witness how does Astronomy empower and make children more aware of the world around them. At the end of the course over 80% of my students were definitely engaged with Astronomy and increased their knowledge about the Universe. I consider this a very successful story, and at the moment keep on improving the classes material.