# Network for Astronomy School Education

Network for Astronomy School Education (NASE) is an International Astronomical Union (IAU) Working Group that works on Training Teachers for primary and secondary schools. In 2007, professor George K. Miley, IAU vice-president, invited Rosa M. Ros to begin exploring the idea of setting up an astronomy program to give primary and secondary school teachers a better preparation in this area of knowledge. The birth of NASE Group occurred when Rosa Maria Ros and Alexandre Costa were sent by UNESCO and IAU to give two courses in Peru and Ecuador in July 2009. Shortly after NASE was officially created in August 2009 during IAU's General Assembly at Rio de Janeiro. From there on more than 80 courses have been presented worldwide.
The topics of "the basic NASE course" are:
* Positional astronomy
* Solar System
* Exoplanets
* Spectrography
* Photometry
* Spectroscopy
* Determination of absolute magnitude
* Stellar nucleosynthesis
* Stellar evolution
* Cosmology
NASE classes were designed for developing countries where teachers don't have many financial resources. NASE Working Group members go to these countries for the first time to prepare a local task group that will disseminate astronomy knowledge and inexpensive didactic materials. The main goal is precisely to set up in each country a local group of NASE members who carry on teaching the essential NASE course every year and to create new didactic inexpensive experiments, demonstrations and astronomical instruments. This has allowed to build a very large repository of educational materials for astronomy with PowerPoint Presentations], animations, articles and lectures, photos, games, simulations websites, interactive programs(e.g. Stellarium) and videos.

## NASE Courses

NASE has now given more than seventy courses mainly in South America, Africa and Asia.
| Meeting | Venue | Dates |
| 1 | Lima (Peru) | 17–20 July 2009 |
| 2 | Salinas (Ecuador) | 18–21 July 2009 |
| 3 | Barranquilla (Colombia) | 6–9 July 2010 |
| 4 | Managua (Nicaragua) | 12–15 July 2010 |
| 5 | Lima (Peru) | 17–20 July 2010 |
| 6 | Rosario (Argentina) | 12–15 October 2010 |
| 7 | Cañada de Gómez (Argentina) | 13–15 October 2010 |
| 8 | Venado Tuerto (Argentina) | 26–28 May 2011 |
| 9 | Rafaela (Argentina) | 22–25 June 2011 |
| 10 | Tegucigalpa (Honduras) | 11–14 July 2011 |
| 11 | Managua (Nicaragua) | 11–14 July 2011 |
| 12 | Panama City (Panamá) | 18–22 July 2011 |
| 13 | Barranquilla (Colombia) | 21–24 July 2011 |
| 14 | Asunción (Paraguay) | 27–30 July 2011 |
| 15 | Reconquista (Argentina) | 2–5 November 2011 |
| 16 | Lima (Peru) | 18–21 January 2012 |
| 17 | Managua (Nicaragua) | 2–6 July 2012 |
| 18 | Tegucigalpa (Honduras) | 9–12 July 2012 |
| 19 | Guatemala City (Guatemala) | 10–13 July 2012 |
| 20 | Quito (Ecuador) | 23–26 October 2012 |
| 21 | La Paz (Bolivia) | 29 October – 1 November 2012 |
| 22 | Barranquilla (Colombia) | 14–16 November 2012 |
| 23 | Santa Fe (Argentina) | 19–21 November 2012 |
| 24 | Asunción (Paraguay) | 21–24 November 2012 |
| 25 | Montevideo (Uruguay) | 26–29 November 2012 |
| 26 | Accra (Ghana) | 8–11 January 2013 |
| 27 | Cañada de Gómez (Argentina) | 12–15 March 2013 |
| 28 | Mendoza (Argentina) | 18–20 March 2013 |
| 29 | Cochabamba (Bolivia) | 16–18 July 2013 |
| 30 | Uberlandia (Brazil) | 29 July – 1 August 2013 |
| 31 | Foz do Iguaçu (Brazil) | 5–8 August 2013 |
| 32 | Bauru (Brazil) | 12–15 August 2013 |
| 33 | Managua (Nicaragua) | 5–7 August 2013 |
| 34 | Beijing (China) | 19–21 August 2013 |
| 35 | Medellín (Colombia) | 2–5 September 2013 |
| 36 | Bogotá (Colombia) | 2–5 September 2013 |
| 37 | Quito (Ecuador) | 23–26 September 2013 |
| 38 | Barranquilla (Colombia) | 8–10 October 2013 |
| 39 | Nairobi (Kenya) | 24–26 October 2013 |
| 40 | Tegucigalpa (Honduras) | 4–7 November 2013 |
| 41 | Guatemala City (Guatemala) | 11–13 November 2013 |
| 42 | San Luis Potosí (México) | 19–22 November 2013 |
| 43 | Montevideo (Uruguay) | 2–5 December 2013 |
| 44 | Huancayo (Peru) | 17–20 March 2014 |
| 45 | Ica (Peru) | 24–27 March 2014 |
| 46 | Mendoza (Argentina) | 24–26 April 2014 |
| 47 | Cluj-Napoca (Romania) | 24–26 April 2014 |
| 48 | Havana (Cuba) | 9–12 June 2014 |
| 49 | Bogotá (Colombia) | 16–19 June 2014 |
| 50 | Quito (Ecuador) | 16–19 June 2014 |
| 51 | Medellín (Colombia) | 25–28 June 2014 |
| 52 | Accra (Ghana) | 28–31 July 2014 |
| 53 | Asunción (Paraguay) | 30 July – 1 August 2014 |
| 54 | Barranquilla (Colombia) | 31 July – 1 August 2014 |
| 55 | Salta (Argentina) | 12–14 August 2014 |
| 56 | Tegucigalpa (Honduras) | 23–24 October 2014 |
| 57 | Cochabamba (Bolivia) | 27–28 October 2014 |
| 58 | Guatemala (Guatemala) | 3–5 November 2014 |
| 59 | Oruro (Bolivia) | 4–7 November 2014 |
| 60 | Managua (Nicaragua) | 10–12 December 2014 |
| 61 | Lima (Peru) | 9–13 February 2015 |
| 62 | Barranquilla (Colombia) | 19–21 March 2015 |
| 63 | San Miguel de Tucumán (Argentina) | 25–27 March 2015 |
| 64 | Cuenca (Ecuador) | 25–27 March 2015 |
| 65 | Jujuy (Argentina) | 11–13 May 2015 |
| 66 | Medellín (Colombia) | 24–27 June 2015 |
| 67 | Guatemala (Guatemala) | 25–27 June 2015 |
| 68 | Managua (Nicaragua) | 13–15 July 2015 |
| 69 | Honolulu (United States) | 1–2 August 2015 |
| 70 | Tegucigalpa (Honduras) | 24–27 August 2015 |
| 71 | Bogotá (Colombia) | 5–7 October 2015 |
| 72 | Bucaramanga (Colombia) | 11–14 October 2015 |

## Partnership courses

NASE has also cooperated with other associations to promote teacher training on astronomy, namely with UNESCO and the European Association for Astronomy Education-EAAE.
| Meeting | Venue | Dates | Partners |
| 1 | Madrid (Spain) | 26 Nov – 1 Dec 2009 | European Association for Astronomy Education-EAAE and Spanish National Research Council - CSIC. |
| 2 | Varna (Bulgaria) | 1–5 September 2010 | European Association for Astronomy Education-EAAE and Varna Astronomical Observatory and Planetarium. |
| 3 | Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) | 14–15 December 2010 | TAD (Teaching Astronomy for Development IAU Commission 46) and Université de Ouagadougou. |
| 4 | Cape Town (South Africa) | 20 August 2011 | OAD (Office for Astronomy Development IAU) and South African Astronomical Observatory |
| 5 | Beijing (China) | 25 August 2012 | Beijing Planetarium and IAU |
| 6 | Enontekiö (Finland) | 28–30 December 2013 | European Association for Astronomy Education - EAAE, LUMA and Helsinki University |
| 7 | San Luis Potosí (Mexico) | 23 November 2013 | Escuela de Estudios Superiores del Magisterio Potosino |
| 8 | London (United Kingdom) | 20–24 July 2015 | European Association for Astronomy Education-EAAE, Royal Astronomical Society and Greenwich Observatory |