Astronomy education in Morocco–a new project for implementing astronomy in high schools

Abstract

Astronomy education in Morocco, as in many developing countries, is not well developed and lacks the very basics in terms of resources, facilities and research. In 2004, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) signed an agreement of collaboration with Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane (AUI) to support the continued, long-term development of astronomy and astrophysics in Morocco. This is within the IAU programme Teaching for Astronomy Development (TAD). The initial focus of the programme concentrated exclusively on the University's Bachelor of Science degree programme. Within this programme, and during two years, we were successful in providing adequate astronomy training to our physics faculty and few of our engineering students. We also offered our students and community general astronomy background through courses, invited talks and extra-curricular activities. The project is now evolving towards a wider scope and seeks to promote astronomy education at the high school level. It is based on modules from the Hands on Universe (HOU) interactive astronomy programme. Moroccan students will engage in doing observational astronomy using their personal computers. They will have access to a worldwide network of telescopes and will interact with their peers abroad. Through implementing astronomy education at this lower age, we foresee an increasing interest among our youth not only in astronomy but also in physics, mathematics, and technology. The limited astronomy resources, the lack of teacher experience in the field and the language barrier are amongst the difficulties that we will be facing in achieving the objectives of this new programme.