Teacher Trainings & Conference Contributions in the Past:

• “First Danish Teacher Training” 15 October, ESO Supernova, Garching bei München, Germany. This two-day teacher training specially arranged for 15 Danish secondary school teacher gave a deep insight into the work and research results of ESO as well as into methods of hoe to bring cutting-edge science into the classroom in a sustainable way. This training combined introductory and high-level talks, excursions into ESO labs and hands-on workshops. This training was organised by ESO.  

• “Try it – twig it: School labs in between the classroom and front-end research” 11-12 October, Campus Garching & Deutsches Museum, Garching bei München / München, Germany. This teacher training on the topic of the pros and cons of school lab visits made teachers familiar with the school labs in Munich and the surrounding area. It was organised jointly by PhotonLab, TUM Science Labs, the ESO Supernova, TUMlab — Deutsches Museum, Experimentier-Werkstatt — Deutsches Museum, DLR_School_Lab — DLR.

• “Physics of Space Flight – Symposium for physics teachers” 27 September, LMU, München, Germany. During this symposium ESO Supernovas workshops “Catching Starlight” and “Seeing the Invisible” dealing with optics and radio astronomy respectively were introduced to the participating teachers together with explanations of the didactics behind. The symposium was organised by the Pedagogical Institute and LMU Munich.    

• “Teacher Training – German Astronomical Society” 08 September, ESO Supernova, Garching bei München, Germany. This teacher training brought to teachers by education researchers focused on Planets, Exoplanets and more. The training was organised by the board of education of the German Astronomical Society in cooperation with ESO and the Excellence Cluster Universe in Garching.

• “Infrared Astronomy – how to detect the Invisible?” 16 August, GTTP Teacher Training, Vienna, Austria. This hands-on workshop was a modified version of the “Astronomy across the Spectrum” workshop of ESO Supernova’s educational programme to illustrate the important role of infrared observation in the exploration of the universe and to demonstrate how the observation techniques and results can be brought into the classroom in a modern, sustainable and curriculum compliant way. The training was organised within the Galileo Teacher Training Program by Global Hands-On Universe.     

• “Developing Inquiry-Based Workshops for High-School Students” 05 June, ECSITE Pre-conference Workshops, Geneva, Switzerland. Many science centres and out-of-school learning labs offer hands-on workshops for (high-school) students in addition to their interactive exhibitions. A common challenge is to find the right balance between open inquiry and "cookbook" type experiments to maximise the lifetime of the equipment, the motivational outcome through self-directed learning, and the learning gain through cognitively engaging activities. At the same time, the effort of tutors/workshop leaders needs to be kept at a reasonable level. The workshop focused on the questions: How to find this balance? What makes a good (or bad) workshop? How to know our workshop is good?

• “The educational programme of ESO Supernova” 29 March, MNU National Meeting, Garching bei München, Germany. During the MNU National Meeting the educational programme of ESO Supernova was introduced. The participants experienced themselves how a school visit at ESO Supernova works and engaged with the inquiry based workshops usually provided for the students. The meeting was organised by the German Association for the Promotion of Mathematics and Science Education (MNU).     

• “Reaching new heights in astronomy” 27 March, MNU National Meeting, Garching bei München, Germany. In this presentation an overview of the European Southern Observatory was given. Videos and images of the observatories in the Atacama Desert were shown as well as scientific simulations of discoveries made possible by these telescopes. The talk gave an outlook into the future with the construction of the world's largest optical telescope, the Extremely Large Telescope. The meeting was organised by the MNU.  

• “Workshops in ESO’s new student laboratory” 21 March, German Physical Society (DPG) Meeting, Würzburg, Germany.In this talk the course of a student visit to the ESO Supernova was envisioned. It also focused on the workshops on telescopes (geometric optics in 3D) and radio astronomy (electromagnetic waves) as part of ESO’s educational programme and explained how basic physical principles can be explored with the simplest of means. The meeting was organised by the Physics Didactics Group of the DPG.  

2016:

• “Discover the applications of Kepler’s Laws in modern astronomy” 01 July, ESO Headquarters, Garching bei  München, Germany. This teacher training showed how important and powerful Kepler’s laws are in modern astronomy. For example, Kepler’s third law allows astronomers to estimate the masses of supermassive black holes and of planets orbiting stars other than the Sun. In addition, deviations from Kepler’s laws seen in galaxy rotation curves led to the discovery of dark matter. During this one-day training, which combined short introductory talks with workshops, participating teachers will be introduced to enquiry-based methods for studying these scientific concepts. This training was organised by the ESO Supernova and Haus der Astronomie.

2015: