Space Wednesdays

The 'Space Wednesdays' concept organised by CNES's Space Culture department arranges lectures on Space themes for teachers and other local education stakeholders.  A twofold approach, both scientific and educational, ensures that participants are given accurate information and practical classroom teaching examples.

Originally organised in and around Toulouse , the Space Wednesdays concept has now widened its reach to teachers in other regions of France .  This led to the very first event being organised at the Guiana Space Centre on 15 March 2006.  Around sixty teachers, from every corner of French Guiana, made the journey to CSG to tour the launch base and attend a series of lectures.

The day's programme included Christophe Bonnal, an expert systems engineer for CNES's Launch Vehicle Directorate, who gave a talk on the theme "Current and future launchers, Ariane 5: how does the European launcher operate?  Which missions should it be used for?", while Jean-Pierre Trinchero, Manager of the Range Safety and Environment department at CNES/CSG presented "The environment at the Guiana Space Centre: regulation, combustion products and contingency plans".

This was followed by various members of the CNES/CSG Communications department giving an overview of the teaching materials available to local teachers.

Educating and informing citizens is a priority mission for CNES, in order to encourage young people to become more interested in Space and sciences in general.

In a similar vein, CNES's Space Culture department also organises Space/Education get-togethers.  These involve a week-long training course based around a series of lectures and scientific and educational workshops, where teachers have the opportunity to acquire new knowledge and exchange ideas with colleagues and course organisers.  Course subjects are chosen according to their suitability for use in class and are prepared and presented by combined scientific/teaching teams.  The three priority target groups for communicating information about Space are (a) the general public, young people and secondary school students who have not yet chosen which subjects they will study, (b) their teachers, and (c) postgraduate engineering students, who may be interested in coming to work for CNES.  It is essential that the objectives should be ambitious if Space activities are to continue in the long term.  Among these objectives, if we want to encourage young people to work in the French and European Space sectors, we have to first seek them out, then inspire them.  Apart from the Space Wednesdays and the Space/Education get-togethers, we do this through career forums, science festivals and open days.