Submit your abstracts for EPSC2021 before 26 May: Reminder of ODAA (Outreach, Diversity, Amateur Astronomy) sessions
ODAA1 | ODAA2 | ODAA3 | ODAA4 | ODAA5 | ODAA6 | ODAA7
The coordinators of the EPSC2021 ODAA (Outreach, Diversity, Amateur Astronomy) program invite scientists to participate in the congress, and share their research with colleagues and friends. This year we have organised a rich program which includes the following sessions:
ODAA1 – Arts for Planetary Science Outreach: Sandboxes and Inspirations
The session explores the role of arts in the wide sense – literature, theatre, movies, games, comics, paintings, sculptures, etc. – in communicating planetary science and related fields. Art can make the sciences more relatable and understandable to the general public, increase their appeal, use narratives to engage emotion and long-term memory and also act as inspiration sources and sandboxes for testing ideas. Board as well as video games and RPGs bringing science closer to the players; comic books depicting seismic waves and magnetic fields; book anthologies of science fiction and fact; theatre revolving around science concepts; space art contests for pupils; all of these and other similar projects would be welcome. In previous years, art-related projects were usually filed under open planetary science or new technologies and local communities, but they weren’t easily found in one place together and didn’t have a specialized session to draw more submissions, which both might hamper discussion, idea exchange and drawing practical conclusions. This session is the place to bring these projects together and enable new ones to spring from there.
‘One argument often put forward in support in projects designed to bring artists and researchers together is that resultant “artwork”, whether this is a performance work, an audio, a book or visual artwork, will appeal to different audiences than those traditionally interested in scientific research. Clearly there are many people who participate in a wide range of cultural opportunities including both artistic events and more traditional research communication activities, but it has been argued that an arts-based approach can reach beyond the traditional demographic interested in a specific research area.’ [“Creative research communication, theory and practice” – C. Wilkinson & E. Weitkamp]
Share: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC2021/session/41593
Convener: Julie Nekola Novakova | Co-conveners: Caterina Boccato, Andrea Brunello
ODAA2 – Diversity and Inclusiveness in Planetary Sciences
The benefits of diversity and inclusiveness in the scientific community are incontrovertible. Following the success of previous years, this session aims to foster debate within the planetary sciences community about the reasons behind under-representation of different groups (gender, cultural, ethnic origin and national) and best practices to make the research environment more inclusive identifying and addressing barriers to equality.
We invite abstracts focusing on: under-representation (gender, cultural, ethnic origin and nationality biases) supported by statistics and data; outreach and education activities to reach broad and diverse audiences, best practices to support inclusiveness; and case studies on mentoring and bias-concerned activities. Data and initiatives related to COVID are strongly encouraged.
Share: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC2021/session/41594
Convener: Arianna Piccialli | Co-conveners: Lena Noack, Andrea Opitz
ODAA3 – Planetary Science Education
Planetary science is an often neglected part of formal education and yet it is one of the most popular natural science topics among children. This session explores the methods and tools developed for and by educators working in formal education from elementary to high school levels, and informal education from museum pedagogy to activity books. The aim of the session is to make these methods and tools visible for both other educators and the scientific community.
Share: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC2021/session/41640
Convener: Peter Fuchs | Co-conveners: Henrik Hargitai, Attila Jeremias Kiraly
ODAA4 – Open planetary science for effective knowledge co-creation and dissemination
Knowledge creation is a collaborative process including synergies between different disciplines, communities and stakeholders. The framework of open science is also connected to the involvement of people outside academia, such as amateur societies, school students, corporate partners etc. Open science has a variety of aspects and applications. What are the efforts done in the field of planetary sciences to establish and increase openness? To what degree planetary science researchers and practitioners endeavour accessibility within the various communities – academics and non-academics? During this session these and other relevant questions will be addressed through the presentation of open planetary science projects, tools, data and platforms. Furthermore, the current status and the potential for future efforts towards an open and public planetary science scheme will be discussed. Building upon the success of the session in EPSC2020, planetary scientists, researchers and other stakeholders are welcome to present new projects and the developments of previous ones, in the context of promoting open & public science. Moreover, the session will include a discussion on the establishment of an open science forum for planetary sciences.
Share: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC2021/session/41659
Convener: Anastasia Kokori | Co-conveners: Caterina Boccato, Angelos Tsiaras
ODAA5 – Professional-Amateur collaborations in small bodies, terrestrial and giant planets, exoplanets, and ground-based support of space missions
Amateur astronomy has evolved dramatically over recent years. A motivated amateur, with his/her backyard instrument and available software is nowadays capable of getting high-resolution planetary images in different wavelengths (better than many professional observatories could achieve 15 years ago). Topics well covered by amateur astronomers include: high-resolution imaging of solar system planets, high-precision photometry of stellar occultations by minor objects and giant planets’ atmospheres, satellites’ mutual phenomena and high-precision photometry of exoplanet transits. Additionally amateurs use dedicated all-sky cameras or radio-antennae to provide continuous meteor-detection coverage of the sky near their location and they start to contribute to spectroscopic studies of solar system objects.
Hundreds of regular observers are sharing their work providing very valuable data to professional astronomers. This is very valuable at a time when professional astronomers face increasing competition accessing observational resources. Additionally, networks of amateur observers can react at very short notice when triggered by a new event occurring on a solar system object requiring observations, or can contribute to a global observation campaign along with professional telescopes.
Moreover, some experienced amateur astronomers use advanced methods for analysing their data meeting the requirements of professional researchers, thereby facilitating regular and close collaboration with professionals. Often this leads to publication of results in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Examples include planetary meteorology of Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune or Venus; meteoroid or bolide impacts on Jupiter; asteroid studies, cometary or exoplanet research.
Additionally, since July 2016, the NASA spacecraft Juno explores Jupiter’s inner structure from a series of long elliptical orbits with close flybys of the planet. To understand the atmospheric dynamics of the planet at the time of Juno, NASA collaborates with amateur astronomers observing the Giant Planet. The collaborative effort between Juno and amateurs is linked to the visual camera onboard Juno: JunoCam. Juno showcases an exciting opportunity for amateurs to provide an unique dataset that is used to plan the high-resolution observations from JunoCam and that advances our knowledge of the atmospheric dynamics of the Giant planet Jupiter. Contribution of amateurs range from their own images to Junocam images processing and support on selecting by vote the feature to be observed during the flybys.
This session will showcase results from amateur astronomers, working either by themselves or in collaboration with members of the professional community. In addition, members from both communities will be invited to share their experiences of pro-am partnerships and offer suggestions on how these should evolve in the future.
Oral and poster presentations are welcome.
Share: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC2021/session/41660
Convener: Marc Delcroix | Co-conveners: Wolfgang Beisker, Ulyana Dyudina, Ricardo Hueso, John Rogers, Helen Usher
ODAA6 – The role of citizen science in scientific research: across disciplines and beyond scientists
Citizen science projects, while existing for a long time, have reached new levels of impact on society and allow to engage the public and connect citizen to professional researchers. In this session, we invite papers from scientists, educators as well as those who design, facilitate, evaluate or fund citizen science projects. Topics may include methodology, applications of citizen science to enhancing outreach, transformative approaches to science education.
Share: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC2021/session/41700
Convener: Stijn Calders | Co-convener: Arianna Piccialli
ODAA7 – Africa-European collaborations in planetary science
The African Union has developed a continental African Space Strategy (2017) that is based on the African Space Policy, which provides the principles for the establishment of a formal African space programme. This strategy is intended to support the Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa 2024 and other relevant continental Strategies, such as the Education Strategy for Africa (CESA 2016-2025), and thus contribute to the achievement of Agenda 2063.
The African Space Strategy suggests that space science and technology can have an impact in combatting the serious challenges that African countries are facing in ensuring the adequate provision of basic necessities for their growing population.
Several large planetary and space science projects expected to start in the very near future in Africa, including the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) and the Botswana Satellite (Botswana Sat-1). The next generation of African scientists, leaders, and entrepreneurs will be part of a growing Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) labour market that currently has a skills shortage in the areas of remote sensing from space, planetary geology, astronomy, and astrophysics.
The Pan-Africa Planetary and Space Science Network (PAPSSN), launched in February, aims to improve access to high-quality STEM education, with a particular emphasis on planetary and space science. The Europlanet 2024 RI project also places a high priority on building collaboration with planetary science communities in Africa, and has recently published a strategy as a first step towards a community-led roadmap for global collaboration as part of Europlanet’s future development as both a Research Infrastructure and as a Society
In this session, we invite members of the community to submit abstracts highlighting developments in planetary science and related fields in Africa, and opportunities for collaboration between Africa and Europe.
Share: https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC2021/session/41770
Conveners: Barbara Cavalazzi, Fulvio Franchi | Co-conveners: Anita Heward, Valentina Marcheselli, Nigel Mason
