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====== Planning for ASTRON/JIVE Girlsday 2007 ======

This wiki space is intended for ideas and preparation of an astronomy-related activity for students visiting ASTRON/JIVE for "Girls Day 2007"

===== General information =====

It is planned that we will have a [[http://www.girlsday.nl|"Girlsday"]] in Dwingeloo in 2007, with the aim to stimulate interest in engineering and astrophysics among schoolgirls in Drenthe. Following the 'diversity committee' meeting on 20 November, the idea is that a group of up to 40 girls aged 12-14 from high school(s) in the region would participate in activities to give them a fun introduction to the science and engineering work done here.

"Pilot" Girls Day on 29 January (coinciding with visit of Maria van der Hoeven, Minister of Education, Culture and Science)

May have another event later in 2007 (initiators of "Girlsday", Technika 10 Nederland, propose around 26 April). NB 23-27 April is the workshop on "Astrophysics in the LOFAR era" in Emmen which some astronomers might want to attend, so perhaps we should avoid these dates in planning the Girlsday.

Language could be a problem - need Dutch speakers!

===== Ideas for astronomy activity =====

Handout information sheet. Introduction/simple explanations in Dutch and simple exercise. Web-based? --> could hopefully try at home or at school later by themselves. Include links to web resources.

Only 20-30 minutes for activity. Few minutes presentation and short exercise.
Have 2 computers set up in Hooghoudt kamer, groups of about 4. Each do an exercise overlaying images, to see how we see different things at different wavelengths.

==== What do (radio) astronomers do? ====

questions: what kind of Universe do we live in? What is there around our planet/our solar system/the Milky Way? Is our Sun a typical star? How do planets/stars/galaxies form? How long do they exist for?

Lots of different things! Energy.
"weather" in space: winds, clouds, bubbles, jets. How gas moves around and collapses to form stars, galaxies etc... 

Interpretation of data - information at different wavelengths: visible light (that our eyes can see) compared with radio waves, much longer wavelengths - that we detect with antennas.

Exercise: overlay optical and radio images e.g. of a galaxy. 

[[girlsday:synthesis:Exercise]]: try to get across some basic concepts of aperture synthesis? Could go on information sheet.