AstroLands Launch and I-LOFAR Education Centre Opening

On Thursday 30th May 2019, the I-LOFAR Education Centre was opened and the Astronomical Midlands Education and Public Engagement Programme was launched. The launch was well attended, with honorary guest Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell giving an inspirational speech on the day. Professor Bell Burnell discovered pulsars in 1967 as a student at the University of Cambridge and was awarded the Special Breakthrough Prize in 2018 for this incredible feat. Other speakers included Professor Peter Gallagher, head of I-LOFAR and Senior Professor at DIAS, and Councillor Danny Owens, Cathaoirleach, Offaly County Council. A reception followed the opening, hosted by Lord and Lady Rosse in Birr Castle.

 

 

The Astronomical Midlands (AstroLands) Programme aims to create an engaging space inside the Education Centre, to launch space camps and workshops for students and schools and to create CPD workshops for upper primary and lower secondary school teachers based on Junior Certificate themes of Earth and Space. AstroLands was funded by Science Foundation Ireland and the European Space Education Resource Office (ESERO).

 

The I-LOFAR Education Centre was developed in partnership with Offaly County Council and has been supported by a grant from the Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affair’s Rural Economic Development Zone (REDZ) initiative.