HdA for Teachers

HdA staff regularly conduct teacher training sessions, both those sessions that are organized and held at the Haus der Astronomie and those that are organized by other institutions. Most of our teacher training is geared towards the German school system, although HdA staff has also participated in teacher training sessions in Chile as part of the cooperation of Heidelberg University with Chilean universities.

The development of production of astronomy-related teaching materials is one of the main educational activities at the Haus der Astronomie. In partnership with the popular astronomy magazine Sterne und Weltraum and Spektrum der Wissenschaft (the German version of Scientific American), we provide monthly sets of classroom-ready teaching material featuring topics of cutting-edge astronomical research. We also develop various astronomy kits: Collections of hands-on experiments on a given range of topics (current kits include an infrared kit and astronomy for elementary schools) that we lend to schools; many of the experiments can also be built by pupils (or teachers) themselves. Some material for younger students will be made available in languages other than German as part of the Universe Awareness project; some classroom material is being translated into Spanish as part of the aforementioned cooperation of Heidelberg University with Chilean universities.

Further offers for teachers include advice on how to organize school astronomy clubs, on ways of integrating astronomical topics into the teaching of physics, and special training for using telescopes (where a limited number of telescopes is available for loan from Haus der Astronomie).

Please also check out or offers for pupils, which includes a brief description of workshops offered for groups of pupils.

Whom to contact for additional information:

Elementary school: Natalie Fischer

Grades 5-10: Cecilia Scorza

Grades 11-13: Olaf Fischer