National Planetarium, Malaysia

On the 23^rd June 2010 (8:30 am to 10:00pm), the National Space Agency (ANGKASA) with cooperation of Curriculum Development Centre, the Ministry of Education has successfully organized the Astronomy Workshop for Primary School Teachers at the National Planetarium.  The workshop was organized to provide science teachers about the basic knowledge of astronomy in accordance to the school syllabus, with the hope that they acquire sufficient knowledge and preparing them in the field of astronomy for enhancement of their teaching activities in school.

The workshop had been participated by 28 teachers from Perak and Pahang.    An explanation about the Solar System, the revolution and rotation of Sun, Earth and Moon, the occurrence of day and night as well as the formation of eclipse and constellations was given in this workshop. The Solar System and constellation have been explained to all teachers by using the new digital planetarium system in the space theater.  They had also built paper craft sundial, the Sun, Earth and Moon model, astrolabe and made their own star chart in this workshop. 

Besides that, all teachers had opportunity to observe the Sun by using telescopes attached with Thousand Oaks and hydrogen alpha filters.  Feedback forms regarding show, space exploration and astronomy exhibition gallery had also been distributed to teachers for survey purpose about its effectiveness to obtain the desired information from the show and exhibit gallery.

Teachers were given the opportunity to watch “Dawn of the Space Age” planetarium show in space theater, visit to exhibition gallery and observatory.  The workshop was concluded with the education kits (Solar System’s booklets, Star chart, Moon chart and poster) and certificate giving ceremony.