Shaw-IAU Workshops by the OAE

University of Nova Gorica (Slovenia) and astronomical magazine Spika run the GoChile project, which uses two small telescopes at the El Sauce Observatory in Chile. The two remotely operated telescopes are primarily intended for teaching—significant telescope time is reserved for secondary school students interested in astronomy. Through the project the students gain experience in observations and get introduced to the process of scientific research. I will present our activities in the past two years: remote teaching, mentoring of research projects and the organization of two summer schools. Interestingly, there has been a great interest in the telescope among girls, which was particularly evident in the summer schools, where more than half of the registrants and participants were girls.

Biography:

Jure Japelj obtained a PhD in astrophysics at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia. He worked as a postdoctoral researcher at INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste in Italy and Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy in the Netherlands. Now he works at the University of Nova Gorica in Slovenia, where he coordinates the GoChile project. In addition, he works part time as a science communicator and science journalist.