IYA has been going strong for six months now, and we are thrilled with its success! Thanks to the efforts of 1000s of volunteers, more than 420,000 Canadians have participated in amazingly diverse events (~1,900 of them implemented or planned as of the end of May) providing them with a moment of personal astronomical discovery. Heartiest congratulations and thanks to everyone who has created and supported IYA events in their communities! We also know that our success is even greater than the numbers indicate, because not all of the numbers are in. If you have unregistered and/or unreported attendance at IYA events (including your introductory astronomy classes, planetarium shows or open nights on your campus), please report them promptly on our web site, www.astronomy2009.ca.
You’ll find a detailed report (under Committee Reports on the CASCA website) of activities since December provided to the CASCA Board of Directors for their May meeting. An exciting recent development: CASCA has placed a contract funded by the NSERC PromoScience grant with Julie Bolduc-Duval, an educator with extensive experience in both formal and informal science education. Through 2011 she will be working approximately 10 hours per week as the education and public outreach coordinator for our partnership. We are trying to raise funds to increase her hours and encourage you to consider making a tax deductible donation to CASCA Trust to support CASCA’s broad education and public outreach programs.
Over the summer please reflect on how you, your friends and colleagues can avail yourselves of the ample opportunities to create IYA events for the September-December period. A particularly attractive window is National Science and Technology Week (16-25 October), which nicely overlaps with the new IAU IYA cornerstone, Galilean Nights (23-24 October).
We welcome your news and suggestions at any time, as does SkyNews, which is striving to archive photos and other materials documenting IYA in Canada. Executive Committee members are striving to keep interesting short news items appearing regularly on www.astronomy2009.ca, as well as to document better the outcomes of IYA. We have replaced our monthly web newsletter with weekly news updates to the lists of IYA liaisons we maintain (e.g., for all amateur clubs, science centres, colleges and universities, etc.). Feedback suggests that this method of distributing information is meeting the communities’ needs better.
Have a great summer replete with clear skies and the joy of sharing your astronomy knowledge and enthusiasm with your neighbours! And don’t forget to register your events and report attendance.
Jim Hesser and Kim Breland