🇪🇸 Versión en español

During a collaborative visit to Rapa Nui, members and collaborators of the Millennium Nucleus on Young Exoplanets and their Moons (YEMS) conducted a series of community, educational and astronomy outreach activities as part of an External Outreach Project (PME) aimed at co-creating a bilingual children's book, in Spanish and Rapa Nui, that connects modern astronomy with the ancestral knowledge of the Rapa Nui people.

The visit included meetings with educational, cultural and community actors from Rapa Nui, school workshops, astronomical observation activities and spaces for interdisciplinary dialogue. Credit: PME Rapa Nui Project / YEMS.

The initiative aims to bring contemporary astronomical knowledge closer to children, young people and communities in Rapa Nui, connecting it with the cosmovision, the territory and the Rapa Nui language. The main output will be a children's activity book that promotes science learning through play-based strategies, while reinforcing cultural practices and the use of the local language, co-created primarily with the Rapa Nui Language Academy.

One of the central objectives of the visit was to build connections with the territory and thereby strengthen a local collaboration network with educational, cultural and community actors on the island. To this end, the team held working meetings focused on concept creation, virtual reality activities in schools to gather students' interests and questions, and a Project-Based Learning workshop with teachers, focused on the connections between astronomy, school curriculum, territory and culture.

The agenda also included activities open to the community, including astronomy outreach sessions, community sky observation, workshops for children, and conversations in accessible and participatory formats. These spaces allowed dialogue about modern astronomy, space exploration and the ways in which different cultures have observed and interpreted the sky.

Among the activities, the participation of astronomer Sebastián Pérez, YEMS principal investigator, stood out. He shared reflections with the community about "interstellar visitors", the study of other solar systems and the importance of building bridges between contemporary science and traditional knowledge.

The book will be distributed free of charge in Rapa Nui schools and its use will be promoted through workshops for teachers on the island. In addition, free copies are planned for distribution in mainland Chilean schools, so that students from other regions can learn astronomy and learn more about Rapa Nui culture.

With this initiative, YEMS reinforces its commitment to astronomy connected with education, territory and intercultural dialogue. By bringing together frontier science, ancestral knowledge and community co-creation, the project seeks to generate meaningful educational materials for new generations and contribute to the appreciation of the cultural and linguistic heritage of Rapa Nui.

Additional information
This External Outreach Project (PME) aims to promote the integration of astronomical knowledge and traditional sky knowledge through the co-creation of a bilingual children's activity book, in Spanish and Rapa Nui, that links modern astronomy with the ancestral knowledge of the Rapa Nui people.