Visnjan Educational Project - Introduction to Science Through Astronomy

Korado KORLEVIC

korado@ astro.hr

Abstract: The Visnjan Educational Project - VEP started as one of the non government answers to the rapidly evolving educational and social environment during the last days of the socialist era in the former Yugoslavia. The idea has survived and grown through the periods of extreme hardship: the fall of communism, disintegration of one country and formation of national states, the war destruction, the post war lust and corruption environment. The VEP embrace 14 -18 years old high school pupils and it is carried out by volunteers. The main idea was to demonstrate in practice to young population the existence of another system of values and that the career in science and technology can be a prized goal. During the 14 years of using astronomy as an introduction to science, the used methods have been changed and astronomy become a “shiny” part of multidisciplinary activities that spread from robotics to biology. The response of the high school pupils has been enthusiastic, and anonymous questionnaires show us that the VEP was for the majority of them the “life changing experience”. As byproduct of these educational activities, a new telescope was build and more than 1400 new minor planets were discovered and followed up. This work on minor planets made the Visnjan Observatory the most prolific observatory of small bodies on the European continent in the 20^th century.

The social, political and historic environment

Since the educational work has a great influence on the youth, during the totalitarian regime in the former Yugoslavia, the communist party (SKJ) organized, financed, and led the complete line of the school system. Also through subsidiaries as “Savez pionira, Savez omladine, Narodna tehnika, Savez sportova” and some smaller branches of the same but different names (1), developed a near complete control of the extra scholastic activities. In the first years after coming to power, communists strongly supported these activities with the goal to destroy the remnants of similar religious organizations. In order to have the control during the summer non-school period, entire campus-like complexes were built. When the influence of religious organizations weakened and the first results of the soviet style planned economy started bringing wealth, the importance of these organizations for the communist party decreased (2) to the point where leading positions became a "parking" place for incompetent political hierarchy members (3).

The problems started after the initial positive effects of the planned economy. The ratio of number of patents per inhabitant was catastrophic. It was less than 1/8 in comparison to Bulgaria on the East and 1/27 to Austria on the West. Similar comparison to Germany or Switzerland was smaller by two orders of magnitude (4).

In the 70's, the communist party made the school system, industry and youth’s organizations more “creative” by declaration. A very complex, sport like, system of competitions for pupils in science and technology, called PZM, was developed and supported through the school system and Narodna tehnika (5). The response of the pupils and teachers was enthusiastic in the beginning, but after years without new challenges and changes and missing incentives for teachers the enthusiasm faded (6). Also at that time, it became evident to pupils that possibilities for a career in science/technology were dim. The PZM system continued to live in schools and cities where the political structure was more open to changes (6). During the last years of the communist government, the “nice facade” of the system started to fall and the economic hardship become evident. The scientific and educational communities were hardly hit by years of neglect: prohibitions to import literature and equipment, and travel to conferences. One of the ways embraced by the communist party to exit the recession was the Karl Marx's theory that the science is one of the master producing forces (7). Many conferences on that topic were organized by the government institutions. The enhanced education for gifted pupils became one of the leading ideas and the educational activities with the gifted and talented pupils became a political trend. In this positive social environment, a few non-governmental organizations emerged and grew. They were led by education enthusiasts and youth. The two leading such initiatives at that time were SC Petnica (8) and MAN Leonardo (9).

2. Visnjan Educational Project - The history

In the year 1976, the Visnjan elementary school and the local Visnjan Amateur Astronomical Society started extracurricular education of gifted pupils through science and technology projects. For more then a decade, Visnjan was one of the best Sci/Tech education centers in the Former Yugoslavia based on results on national competitions, but the choice of pupils was limited to those from Istra peninsula (Istarska Zupanija).

After the supporting push from the SC Petnica and MAN Leonardo, supported by local political leadership, the existing educational activities with gifted pupils at Visnjan expanded. By mutual agreement between the Local political organizations, the Visnjan elementary school and the astronomical society, the dormitory was build to accommodate non-resident pupils. In 1989, the first workshop was organized under the name “The Yugoslav Summer School of Astronomy”. 21 high school pupils and 10 team leaders and lecturers attended. The main scientific result was the meteor observations that were published the same year in the journal of the IMO - WGN. In addition, a poster was presented at the Conference of the International Meteor Organization (10). The scientific, educational, and management experiences, mixed with the changing environment of the disintegration of communist parties, were used to model the shape of the next workshop. The astronomical projects became multidisciplinary projects linked with other scientific and technological fields. All the work was published and the official language became English so that accepting pupils and lecturers from abroad was possible. The same was with the other activities where the political leadership never understood the far reach of the ongoing initiatives.

But politics started to mess with the lives of people as the communist parties in the federative state disagree on the common politics and the economics. Political disagreements grew until the disintegration of Yugoslavia to semi-independent states in 1991. The federal army led by orthodox communists strongly influenced from Belgrade tried to prevent the separation of the Yugoslav Republics, through open aggression, occupation, and blood lust - war. The workshop changed name to “Visnjan School of Astronomy” and the participants had to struggle in 1991 to return home because the war started during the workshop.

This was an extremely difficult period of time for pupils and team leaders, some of them becoming refugees. The whole balance of civil society was gone. The same or even worse for the society was the post war period.

The stratification of the Croatian society continued, the women place in the society continued to degrade, and all that was reflected in the girls participation on the workshops, as visible in Figure 1.:

Figure 1.) The fluctuation of presence of girls at the summer workshops “Visnjan School of Astronomy” strongly reflects political and social environment in Croatia in the period of 1989-1998. After 1998, a kind of "affirmative action" was taken and special care was given encouraging the feminine pupils to attend. The result is optimistic now as far as VEP is concerned, but the general situation is changing slowly. The points indicated by numbers represent: 1.) The fall of the communists parties and the beginning of political pluralism. Also, the growth of the economic wealth in the former Yugoslavia. 2.) Start of the political radicalization, Yugoslav army's aggression on the main cities, the war starts. 3.) The war ends by military means. 4.) The war “really” ends by a political agreement. The Yugoslav army withdraws from Croatia. 5.) The economic and moral disintegration of the society start and the women part in the society becomes “the breeding part of the society”. 6.) After the year with no girls, with the support from the World Laboratory, a number of actions were taken to reach and encourage the high school female pupils to participate. After 2001, it seems that this support for feminine population will be less necessary.

Trying to run educational programs during the war drew Astronomical Society near the bankruptcy. During that time, both telescopes were lost. They were used as military spotting scopes for the cities of Gospic (Croatia) and Sarajevo (Bosnia).

Instead of closing the observatory, the educational activity increased trying to give an alternative to the continuous exchange of war bulletins in the media. Things also changed qualitatively. Following the experiences from the world (11), the Amateur Society changed to Public Observatory with the goal to become an excellence project in education (12). The war years, from 1992 till 1995, were extremely difficult years for any kind of activities. Drago Sirovica, the meteor group team leader died during a war action. The government did not support activities that where without the full control of the state. That included many non-governmental associations or projects. The VEP survived just by the work of many volunteers, and support by the local authorities and some international foundations, such as the “Beringer Crater Company Foundation”, the “Open Society Foundation”, the “World Laboratory Foundation” (13) and many private donations.

The lost telescopes were replaced by a telescope build as result of many student projects (14)(15) and new program of observation started (16). As the ties with similar projects in the former Yugoslavia became difficult (Petnica), or the observatories were destroyed (Sarajevo), or projects ceased to exist (MAN Leonardo), the preferential direction for contacts and exchange of experiences moved to observatories and institutions from Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy and the USA. After the war, a complex and very difficult period followed for the Visnjan Observatory to survive. Hopefully, in the last few years the situation is becoming better as the Croatian Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs starts to support one part of the educational activities (17). After the situation in the region started to normalize, the old telescope optic had returned from the city of Sarajevo and in the year 2001 we had the first exchange of visits with the SC Petnica.

The multidisciplinary concept of workshops held at the Visnjan Observatory was used to start two similar projects in Italy, one at the Remanzacco Observatory (18) and another in the city of Ravena as the project of the Bologna University (19).

The new technology telescope developed and build in Visnjan from 1993 to 1995 showed great potentials. After supported by new methods and software (20) in the following years, it permitted an important row of astrometric measurements (21) and small body discoveries that placed the Visnjan Observatory on the first place in the number of asteroid discoveries on the European continent in the 20th century.

3. VEP - The Visnjan Educational Project

After the decision that the war situation should not end the educational activities, the idea of a Public Observatory started to emerge through the analysis of feasibility (12), (22). By surprise, the projects were not accepted to receive support by the Ministry of education, so the projects started independently. The observatory became a public non-profitable and non-government organization. The activities diversified in the attempt to reach the largest possible circle of pupils who knew that such educational activities exist. For that purpose the presence of the Visnjan Observatory in the media increased.

Practically, today VEP can be viewed as a symbiosis of smaller projects targeting different population of pupils with the same educational goal: to be the best possible introduction to science and technology to the widest possible population of interested pupils. The subprojects are:

3.1. “Astronomske prirodoslovne noci – A night at the Observatory”

This program was shaped for kindergarten kids and grandparents with their grandsons who want to visit the Observatory. The main purpose was to push the child’s imagination and motivate those that have interest and predisposition to take a career in science and technology. Also to disseminate the information that the programs held in the Visnjan Observatory can be one of the ways to do that.

3.2. The Teachers Workshop.

Trying to reach the widest possible population of pupils (22), the “Teachers Workshop” was held with the support of the CAS - Croatian Astronomical Society (23). The workshop was a success in its educational part, but the financial results were grim. The next teachers activities in the Visnjan Observatory shifted to less expensive and unfortunately less effective ways of cooperation with teachers: meetings, newsletter, didactic support, slides sets for teaching. The “teachers workshop” continued in Croatia, but in different form and held by the CAS.

The results of the teachers “full immersion” workshop where extremely positive. When the financial situation permit, the “Teacher Workshop at Visnjan” will start again. In the meantime, the communication with the community of teachers would be enhanced by the new technologies.

3.3 Svemir u ucionici – Universe in the Classrom

ISSN 1330-7045. One of the ways to give teachers full information about the main celestial issues, and to substitute the banal ones from the media, was the newsletter “Svemir u ucionici”, the Croatian translation of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific’s teachers newsletter “Universe in the Classroom”. A free of charge distribution of the printed newsletter to schools was not supported by the Ministry of Education because it was published by a non-government organization. The newsletter switched to the web (24) when the technology became available in 1996, but in those days only few teachers had the possibility to reach it. Today the situation is very different and the web form of the “Svemir u ucionici” newsletter is becoming different and illustrated more than even the original ASP newsletter. It is read in a wider area then just Croatia. The translation of the Croatian version is used in Macedonia by the “Astronomical Society of Skopje” for their public presentations (25).

3.4. Nebeske krijesnice - Celestial fireflies

ISSN 1330-4410. One of the main problems that were affecting the results of the high school workshop VSA was the lack of communications and exchange of information and data between the participants. Publishing of a simple newsletter started to fill that gap. The name “Nebeske krijesnice” means “Celestial fireflies”, a Croatian name for meteors. The meteor astronomy was widely publicized, as the observers can observe from home, and no equipment is needed. The newsletter shifted to the web form when the majority of pupils were able to reach it. Recently, a few email lists are covering these needs and the printed version has not published in five years. However, to cover some special needs of communications, a reactivation of the printed versions is considered again.

3.5. Acta astronomica visnianiensis

ISSN 1330-2620. Publishing results in the proper scientific format and style is a way in which science works. We tried to give to the pupils a place to do that under the referee from the team leaders and visiting scientists. The printed version started, but it was too expensive to maintain, and everything was shifted to other journals, such as WGN, the Journal of the International Meteor Organization, or as a part of the “VSA Reports”, or in the electronic form. The publication of the “Acta” will continue soon as proceedings of various conferences and meetings.

3.6. Visnjan School of Astronomy

The VSA is a summer workshop of astronomy and related sciences. It is held usually in the first half of August and lasts in average for ten days. The official languages are English and Croatian, depends on the group's structure. All the main lectures and presentations are in English. During years, scientific methods and astronomical fields of interest have changed, but not the educational goals - to find the best possible way to introduce pupils to science and the scientific method (26) and find the measure of interactivity between science and technology. These workshops represent a continuing experiment in an attempt to merge science and education, without the usual stress, where the pupils are treated like research colleagues in scientific and technology projects. As the main field of work is done by night, the timetable is also unusual: getting up around 12:30 pm. Lunch followed by the data reduction from previous night's observation. The lecture in English language starts at 5 pm and lasts for an hour or two. Dinner is at 7 pm. The preparations for observations start around 8:30 pm and they run from 9 pm till 5:30 am.

Figure 2.) All the teamwork is done in a mode that is as much different from the classroom work as possible. This image shows the group for the meteor observation in the shadow of the dormitory's veranda in the “family” like atmosphere while they are reducing the previous night data.

The workshop is held in a scientific environment, but to display other realities, educational excursion to other astronomical and non-astronomical institutions is carried.

VSA has been combining scientific work with learning for thirteen years, and throughout these years it has followed many important astronomical events. The collision of the fragments of Schomaker-Levy 9 and Jupiter were followed during the VSA 1994 by various experiments. Comets and meteor showers are followed every year. The VSA does not stop in the end of those ten summer days because the communication continues with interested pupils and they can join other activities.

The majority of participants, 2/3 of them, are contacted during the "Astronomy Science fairs" in Croatia, but the workshop is open also for other 14-18 years old high school pupils from all around the world selected to fill the quote of usually 20 participants. For these other pupils, it is appreciated if their application form is accompanied by a presentation letter from one of teachers at the school he/she is attending. But the procedure is not so rigid. Exchanges of letters or interviews with one of the team leaders are enough. The spatial distribution of attendees is very peculiar and reflects more the political turmoil, front line positions, and refugee’s migrations in the past decade, than the distribution of inhabitants, level of scientific culture, etc. Figure 3.)

3.7. WLab Project T-1A/I "Training Students in Basic Science at the Visnjan Observatory"

This was a very important project during the period 1996-1999 when it was completely supported by the ICSC – World Laboratory organization. The pupils who have interest to continue the work initiated during the VSA summer workshop had a possibility to attend various group activities or by individual work at the Observatory during a year.

3.8. Students at Visnjan and Management in Science and Education

One of the latest educational programs that are evolving at the Visnjan Observatory represents the self-organization of the former VSA/WLab workshop attendees who wanted to continue the work and organize their colleague students to join some projects.

The results of the ex VEP students' groups working together are quite impressive and the best known is the Meteor expedition in Mongolia to record electrophonic sounds and the scientific output that it is generating.

Also, the program is in part a supplement to the education of the students in the fields of education and management that are not present enough at the science studies.

3.9. Natural sciences Workshop Visnjan

The last of the workshops that initiated in 2001 is for four graders and fifth graders. The main goal is introduction to the scientific method for young, elementary school pupils. In that case, the Astronomical Observatory is just a frame because the field of work is actually stretched from arts to meteorology.

3.10. WEB – presence

The mixing of technology and sciences was the “file rouge” for the multidisciplinary approach to the activities. Computers have been important in the education of gifted pupils at Visnjan since the year 1980. Six years after the first connection to the net begun. As the Internet evolved to the web, so evolved the educational and scientific presence of the Visnjan Observatory. The newsletters (27), articles (28), books and images are accessible freely through the web.

3.11. Giving support to other programs

As the activities diversified and science projects becoming more distant from astronomy, many new personal and institutional contacts bring new ideas and are initiating new projects in Croatia. Since the dormitory and the Visnjan Observatory are in Visnjan and since they provide a kind of scientific environment, they allow to different groups a chance to come to Visnjan to organize their activities that are in part connected with the VEP. These groups range from scouts to specialized workshops such as “Daroviti prirodoslovci 2001 – Gifted naturalists 2001” organized in Visnjan by the city of Zagreb's “Peoples technique association”.

4. Conclusion

The Visnjan Educational Project began to introduce gifted high school pupils to sciences in a specific time in the history of the region of southeast Europe. The project grew, diversified and changed to accommodate new needs of the pupils. A pattern of support activities and contacts was developed and maintained to run these project Figure 4.

The main educational problems that are identified during the project's duration and are partially solved or the work is still going on, are: dissemination of scientifically correct information to the public, searching the way to bypass the school system to reach gifted pupils, cope with the fall of interest for a scientific career in the post communist and post wartime situation, fall of girls participation in the “top” social activities. The scientific results and technological development produced by the involved pupils and students showed us that a gifted population of pupils needs projects and facilities where they can live in a stimulant scientific environment. The most important result for these pupils where not the first scientific measurements, results, or papers presented on conferences but the “high hopes” incentive.

The near future of the VEP will be more of the same, but with a special attention to follow the social, legislative, educational and communications changes that are going on. Also, the project must to start widening the group of volunteers and professionals involved in the project. For more distant future, more evolution patterns exists.

During the last year, only the strong fluctuation in connections between the subjects was a constant.

5. References

[1] M. Tripalo, Communist party and the young’s, Our way, NIP-Komunist, Beograd, 1969, 337-350 (in Serbian)

[2] S. Kavacic, Social and economical reforms end their importance, Our way, NIP-Komunist, Beograd , 1969, 177-207, (in Serbian)

[3] D. Rakovac at all. Communist party leadership-personal communications, 1975-1990.

[4] M. Vukusic, Social environment for the development of inventive work in Yugoslavia, Inventivni rad, Vjesnik, Zagreb, 1984, 37-43. (in Croatian)

[5] D. Malvic-editor., People’s technique in Croatia, Narodna tehnika Hrvatske, 1986, (in Croatian)

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[8] V. Maic, Editorial, ISP Bilten, Valjevo, 10 (1990) 3.

[9] Z. Ivezic, Young’s academy of gifted “Leonardo”- the project, Mala akademija nadarenih Leonardo, Pula, 1990.

[10] K. Korlevic, Yugoslav Summer School of Astronomy -1989, poster presentation, International Meteor Conference, Balatonfoldvar, 1989.

[11] J. Pasachoff and J. Percy, The Teaching of Astronomy-Proceedings of the 105 Colloquium, International Astronomical Union, Wiliamstown, 1988.

[12] K. Korlevic: VAP – Proposal of the new approach to introduce gifted pupils to scientific research through astronomy in Croatia, Zvjezdarnica Višnjan, 1992. (in Croatian)

[13] A. Contin, T1 A/1 / World Laboratory Project on Training of Students in Basic Science at the Visnjan Astronomical Observatory, Proceedings of the Fourteenth Combined Project Directors’ and Scientific Committee Meetings of the ICSC-World Laboratory, Lausane, 34, 269-284, 1998.

[14] Z. Andreic, Telescope Making Handbook, Zvjezdarnica Visnjan, Visnjan, 1990. (in Croatian)

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[16] K. Korlevic at all., Published a number of measurements in the Minor Planet Center's MPC and MPEC circulars, 1995-2002.

[17] A. Bedalov and B. Lukic, The Visnjan Educational Project, poster presentation, NGOs Days, Zagreb, 2001.

[18] G. Sostero, AFAM – The young’s and the science, project for a new didactics, AFAM brochure, Udine, 2001. (in Italian)

[19] A. Contin, personal communications, Bologna University, 2002.

[20] M. Juric and K. Korlevic, Visnjan Observatory Image Database 2 , Proceedings of CUC 2000onference, Zagreb, 2000.

[21] K. Korlevic, M. Juric, Visnjan Observatory Asteroids Followup Program 1995-2000, poster presentation, Asteroids 2001 Conference, Palermo, 2001.

[22] K. Korlević[23] : Proposal for the beggining of an Teachers Astronomical Workshop, Zvjezdarnica Višnjan, 1992. (in Croatian)

[24] M. Gerbaldi, L. Bottinelli, L Gougenheim, F. Delmas. J.Dupre: Training of school teachers at French Astronomy Summer Universities, Proceedings of the 105th colloquium of the IAU, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA

[25] Z. Andreic at all, Astronomical Handbook 2. , Zvjezdarnica Visnjan, Visnjan, 1993. (in Croatian)

[26] Visnjan Observatory, Svemir u ucionici, (Available online at:http://www.astro.hr/ucionica ) (in Croatian)

[27] T. Stimac, personal communications, 2002.

[28] N. Edmund, SM-14 The General Pattern of the Scientific Method, Norman W. Edmund, Lauderdale, 1993.

[29] Visnjan Observatory, Web Library, (Available online at: http://www.astro.hr/library ) (in Croatian)

[30] Visnjan Observatory, News Page, (Available online at: http://news.astro.hr ) (in Croatian)