Sixth International School On Mind, Brain And Education
2011 August 3-7
Education in the
Digital Era
Directors: Antonio M. Battro and Kurt W. Fischer
Program officer: María Lourdes Majdalani
LAMAP, France
Children of the Moon: imaging the Earth’s satellite with XO laptops
Because it has a strong impact on imagination, astronomy can play a major role in science education and motivate, through the beauty of images, the discovery of our surrounding universe. To make simple astronomical images accessible to a large number of children, we have developed a science project that aims at recording images of the Moon with a small telescope attached to XO laptops of the OLPC program. I will present the educational content, focussing on cognitive sequence and inquiry-based activities. Through the study of Moon phases, children are invited to work on the nature of digital images and the link between reality and digital representation.