I was never a good student until I finished high school, but after so many years, I got the chance to practice my astronomy knowledge, in the center of Vida Plena this time.

Every week we have staff meeting where we plan the next week and brainstorm on possible low-budget projects. The projects need to be really free of expense, since Vida Plena is an NGO and everything at the center is covered by what the organization receives from the donations: from the pencils to wages of the educators, from the food to the entire administration costs.

Sometimes the projects aim to encourage the creativity of our participants, sometimes they aim to create awareness and sometimes they just aim to offer entertainment. In our weekly meeting, we talked about focusing on an activity, which would help to see and think about “the big picture”. Herewith, we came up with the Astronomy Project, the Geography Project and the Microscope Project.

The Astronomy Project was going to aim to introduce the Milky Way, the Solar System, the planets and the stars of our galaxy; in addition, it was going to shortly begin a discussion on how we have days&nights, and seasons: in short, it was going to present the place of Earth in the Universe.

The Geography Project on the other hand was going to intend to discover other parts of the world, different realities other than the ones in Abasto and to make an imaginary trip, all together, to other continents and cultures of our planet.

Finally, the Microscope Project was going to introduce our little invisible friends called bacteria and germs, and explain our participants the importance of the basic hygienic measures, such as washing our hands and brushing our teeth.
Uno Dos Tres, Sol, Tierra, Venus.

So, the first of those three projects was the astronomy project, where we built a model representing the Solar System. The planets were made with paper-mache and paint, very simple! We also had a poster showing how little our planet Tierra is in comparison to the bigger planets and our sun, Sol. We started by rising some thought-provoking questions. Then some of the kids represented the planets and rotated around the Sun. They tried to follow their own orbits, without crashing into anyone.

After our brief astronomical session, kids had another surprise from a visitor, called Cristina. Elisabeth’s daughter Cristina, who is living in Majorca, Spain, introduced some movement and dancing games with the music she brought with her. Accompanied by very energetic music everyone danced and jumped around and had so much fun! It was no doubt a great, great day!

Hugs,
Sara