BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//CERN//INDICO//EN
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:O49 - JUST LOOK UP: ASTRONOMY NIGHTS AS A MODEL FOR EXPERIENTIAL S
 CIENCE
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20261125T061500Z
DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20261125T063000Z
DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20261112T144209Z
UID:indico-contribution-907@indico.narit.or.th
DESCRIPTION:Speakers: Rey Niño Baguio (Mr)\nFor nearly three decades\, As
 tronomy Night at the Philippine Science High School (PSHS) Main Campus has
  been an overnight observational astronomy event integrated into the schoo
 l's Earth Science program. Though never mandated by curriculum\, it has ru
 n almost without interruption\, missing only two years during the pandemic
 . Each year\, students spend a night mapping the sky and using telescopes 
 to view celestial bodies. The night closes with the same ritual every time
 : a short narration of how people before them once looked up at the same s
 ky and wondered\, then the whole batch lying together on the school field\
 , looking up in silence.\nReflections gathered from batches of roughly 240
  students year on year reveal a consistent pattern. While the night is str
 uctured around learning\, what stays with students is its least instructio
 nal moment: lying on the field\, looking up. It produces curiosity\, wonde
 r\, and reflection on scale and place\, often as students' first experienc
 e under a genuinely dark sky.\nIn recent years\, PSHS has translated core 
 elements of this design (field-lying observation\, telescope use\, and an 
 accessible sky-watching lecture) into a shorter\, one-time program for vis
 iting school groups. The translation necessarily strips away what a 30-yea
 r curricular program offers that a single evening cannot: instructional de
 pth\, repeated exposure\, and a trained peer-mentor pipeline. What appears
  to survive the translation is the awe response itself. Visiting students\
 , most with far less astronomy background than PSHS's own\, seem to respon
 d to the same invitation to look up with comparable curiosity and wonder. 
 This suggests the mechanism may not depend on prior knowledge\, only on an
  open\, unhurried invitation to notice.\nWe present this translation as a 
 case study in design portability: what a program built for one institution
 's specific conditions retains\, and loses\, when adapted for institutions
  without that history. We argue the field-lying moment functions as curios
 ity made physically visible\, an immediate and universally legible prompt 
 in the night sky itself. That makes it a low-barrier\, highly replicable m
 odel for planetariums\, science centers\, and outreach programs seeking to
  diversify and extend their audience reach\, regardless of their own insti
 tutional depth or resources.\n\nhttps://indico.narit.or.th/event/238/contr
 ibutions/907/
LOCATION:Dusit Thani Mactan Cebu Resort Ballroom III
URL:https://indico.narit.or.th/event/238/contributions/907/
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR