Abstract
This contribution deals with the author's decade of experience organising summer schools for European teachers of secondary school students. Teachers' main interests are similar to those of students. The goal of the summer school is to provide them with: • answers to their questions:
• practical activities, to facilitate learning by doing;
• different approaches to the study of astronomy: making models and drawings, playing in
the playground, and feeling like the principal actors in the teaching/ learning process;
• astronomical activities that can help teachers/students to teach/learn mathematics or
physics in a more appropriate way to attract young people to science;
• information through simple and clear language, minimizing specialized language, which
acts as a barrier to close interaction with students;
• some methods that promote rationality, cW"iositya, nd creativity, making use for observations
and measurements of the sky that lies above every school;
• a contextualized approach to astronomy, to avoid presenting concepts in an isolated way
and to connect the school with the place where the students live.
In summary , students who are exposed to opportunities to connect astronomy with their lives are more likely to have a positive reaction to astronomy in general. This paper will present some concrete examples of all these ideas.
