Astronomy for all a community initiative to mentor students in remote Moroccan villages

Public primary school students in the Atlas Mountains did not expect to see a telescope to observe stars and planets one day, until the scientific initiative "Astronomy for All" came under the supervision of the " Asif Astronomical Club ", which seeks to communicate astronomy to primary school students in remote villages of Morocco.

Al-Mahdi Al-Saidi, a doctoral student at Hassan I University in Settat and the supervisor of this initiative, said in an interview with AJ NEWS Net via e-mail, "What prompted me to embark on this initiative is my great interest in voluntary association work in addition to my prior knowledge of physical sciences, and my desire to Sharing it with children, so that children on the margins of the Small Atlas have the opportunity to use scientific technological means, such as the astronomical telescope.”

The Asif Astronomical Club had organized its last astronomy workshop - framed by Al-Mahdi Al-Saeedi - on the solar system under the title “ITRI WASIF” in its third edition for the benefit of the children of the Kdoret school group in the Anti-Atlas Mountains on January 15th .

A community scientific initiative in remote villages

The “Asif” Astronomical Club is a scientific community initiative of the “Assif n Ait Bounouh for Culture and Social Development” association, in the districts of Tafraout (southern Morocco), and was established after the association won a telescope from the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in an international astronomy competition in partnership with The Belgian initiative "Stars Shine for All" (SSVI) in 2020, under the supervision of the "Moroccan Communication Committee for the Publishing of Astronomy of the International Astronomical Union" (IAU Morocco-NOC).

Al-Mahdi - to AJ NEWS Net - "The importance of this scientific initiative is demonstrated by the openness of the student in the rural world to these technological means, which are largely unavailable in educational institutions, and this is the role of civil society represented in forming partnerships to develop educational action in remote areas, and to encourage schooling To eliminate school wasting, and this is what our association seeks through the annual activities that it has been organizing since 2015.

Among the activities that the initiative focuses on in the astronomy workshops, are theoretical presentations about the solar system, its components of the planets, its most important characteristics and the place of the planet in it, in addition to workshops on arranging the planets belonging to the solar system as an application, in addition to opening discussions with students and answering their most important questions.

In addition, there are practical workshops in which students use the telescope by looking at the moon in the institution’s yard, which allows the students to get to know the moon by looking at it directly from the astronomical telescope, after getting to know it theoretically in the presentation of the theoretical workshop.

In this regard, Moaz Al-Radaki - a community activist from the Kedourt area in the Afla Aghir community (the extreme south of Morocco in the Small Atlas chain) - told AJ NEWS by phone, "These workshops give an opportunity for children who suffer from a lack of non-school activities in remote areas, and these The workshops provide them with opportunities to open up to scientific fields outside the school curriculum, and to understand the horizons of other sciences, to search for more information that would support and highlight their talents.

Astronomy for all

This initiative was launched in 2020 in 3 public school groups, in the provinces of Tata and Tiznit in southern Morocco, where the number of students who were trained exceeded 150 students, under the supervision of the only scientific club in the region, where people began to accept the idea of ​​its existence as a community scientific initiative.

Al-Mahdi Al-Saidi - who participated as a summer student at the Nuclear Physics Laboratory in Geneva 2019 - told AJ NEWS, "The aim of this initiative is to familiarize the students with the binoculars closely, and the surprise and joy were observed in the first viewing of the moon from the telescope, their joy reflects the shock of knowledge represented in knowing They never imagined accessing it in such a practical way and with these modern tools.”

Despite all the challenges represented by the lack of financial capabilities and the lack of interest of local associations in the scientific field, in addition to the weak structure of education in the rural world, the researcher Al-Mahdi and his companions in this scientific initiative are thinking of completing the tour in the future in all remote villages, and creating partnerships with associations and educational institutions And with art festivals.

Al-Mahdi told AJ NEWS Net, "We will continue with the workshops in each village, in addition to planning a future project for the benefit of the children of the Tiznit region, the districts of the city of Tafraout (southern Morocco) and the rest of the groups in the region, which could be in partnership with the Tifawin Festival to conduct an astronomy workshop for the benefit of the children of the region for days. the festival".

Moaz Al-Radaki comments, "The children received this initiative with great joy, and it was an opportunity for them to delve deeper into the knowledge of the stars, planets and galaxies, and it enabled them to discover worlds they were looking at with their naked eyes and did not understand. We hope to reorganize this initiative, which left good echoes among the children and their parents."(Al-Jazeera)