We are very excited to announce the winners of the Space Awareness Celebrating Excellent Space Science Teaching National and Global Competitions! Many outstanding entries from teachers and educators around the world showed the creative ways they have used Space Awareness resources to inspire young people with space sciences.
We received 70 entries from 14 different countries distributed in 7 National competitions and a Global competition — see the list of winners and runner-ups for each competition below. All national and global winners will receive a Celestron's FirstScope Telescope and educational resources from Space Awareness while the runner-ups will receive educational resources from Space Awareness. All winners will also receive recognition badges for schools and individuals, and the publication of the finalist submissions on the Space Awareness website.
The winners per category from each contest are now entering the international final. These winning entries will be translated into English and judged by an international panel of judges, including space science experts and education specialists from the European Space Agency (ESA), the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Office of Astronomy Outreach, the IAU Office of Astronomy for Development, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), the IAU astroEDU project and the Space Awareness Advisory Board. The international winners will be announced by late November 2017.
We would like to congratulate all of the participants who entered the competition. All participants will receive a certificate of participation. We also want to thank the National Organizers for their hard work to organize the national competitions.
List of Winners
- BRAZIL
Category A - Inspiring young people from diverse backgrounds with space sciences
Winner: Ms Nicolle Cabral Coutinho
- BULGARIA
Category A - Inspiring young people from diverse backgrounds with space sciences
Winner: Ms Nikolina Ruseva
Runner-up: Ms Krasinella Georgieva
Category B - Supporting young people to become aware of space-related careers
Winner: Ms Tsetsa Hristova
- GREECE
Category A - Inspiring young people from diverse backgrounds with space sciences
Winner: Ms Marina Molla
Runner-up: Ms Eleftheria Karagiorgou
Category B - Supporting young people to become aware of space-related careers
Winner: Ms Maria Eleftheriou
Runner-up: Ms Anastasia Georgiou
- INDIA
Category A - Inspiring young people from diverse backgrounds with space sciences
Winner: Ms Falicia Janet
Runner-up: Mr S.Sharmila Bai
Category B - Supporting young people to become aware of space-related careers
Winner: Mr Bharath Kumar V
Runner-up: Mr Banu Ravi
- NIGERIA
Category A - Inspiring young people from diverse backgrounds with space sciences
Winner: Ms Chinasa Edith Ogbonna
Runner-up: Mr Nwokedi Daniel Chibuike
- POLAND
Category A - Inspiring young people from diverse backgrounds with space sciences
Winner: Mr Robert Góra
Runner-up: Ms Monika Czerkas
Category B - Supporting young people to become aware of space-related careers
Winner: Ms Małgorzata Szymaszek
- ROMANIA
Category A - Inspiring young people from diverse backgrounds with space sciences
Winner: Ms Carmen Stanciu
Runner-up: Ms Carmen Alexandra Miricioiu
Category B - Supporting young people to become aware of space-related careers
Winner: Ms Daniela Lungoci
Runner-up: Ms Angela Rotaru
- GLOBAL COMPETITION (for countries without a national competition)
Category A - Inspiring young people from diverse backgrounds with space sciences
Winner: Mr Danilo Borovnica (Serbia)
Runner-up: Mr Ezzarg Abdelaziz (Morocco)
Category B - Supporting young people to become aware of space-related careers
Winner: Ms Gabriella Ricci (Italy) and Anita Šimac (Croatia)
Runner-up: Mr Selçuk Yusuf Arslan (Turkey)