AstronoMine, program to learn astronomy in Basque through video games

2024/11/21 STEAM-Hezkuntza (Elhuyar Zientzia)

• STEAM-hezkuntza
• Elhuyarren berriak

Elhuyar has launched AstronoMine, a program in Basque to learn astronomy through videogames, along with 5 other European countries. AstronoMin’s primary goal is to promote astronomy in schools through game-based learning, improving the quality of education in STEM areas, and improving teachers’ digital skills.

Elhuyar has worked on the project as part of the Erasmus+ knowledge partnerships with 5 other European countries. It was launched in 2022 and has been led by the Drumcondra Education Centre (Ireland). Together with Elhuyar, the group was formed by Private School Themistoklis (Greece), NUCLIO (Portugal), Atermon B.V. (Netherlands) and Hearthands Solutions (Cyprus). Thus, the video game is available in 6 languages: English, German, Portuguese, Greek, Spanish and Basque. To be able to operate in AstronoMin, you need to have the Minecraft Education video game installed. AstronoMine is the first Basque video game to be found in this program.

Addressing the gap

The AstronMine project aims to respond to the lack of astronomy lessons in EU countries, filling this gap with innovative training materials. In fact, astronomy is taught as a compulsory subject in very few countries; moreover, in some countries there are no astronomy courses in the curriculum. The most common case is that young people ages 10 to 14 work on basic issues like day and night, seasons, moon phases, planetary orbits, or descriptions of planets and stars.

AstronoMin aims to go beyond these basic astronomy studies, relating its contents to technology, the economy and the improvement of society. For example, new fossil fuels, new renewable energy sources, inventions that can be used for medicine, image sensors, etc.

Teacher Manual

The second result of the project has been a manual for teachers. To develop the book, a study was carried out in all the countries of the project and the deficiencies of astronomy teaching were identified. The manual aims to address these shortcomings.

The manual contains a number of themes, as well as proposals for informal activities to encourage teachers to perform interactive and practical activities in the classroom. The modules work on traditional topics such as stations, the solar system, tides, etc. There are also subjects less known to students, such as the genesis of stars, gravity, phases of the moon, etc.

• Click to access AstronoMine, Minecraft education.
• Click to get the teacher's manual.