Full coverage of the Salon
... and here a Photoreportage
Again, the Constantine
Salon on Popular Astronomy held in celebration of World
Space Week in Algeria this year was truly epoch making.
Many hundreds of visitors walked through the aisles of the Salon
organized by the Sirius Astronomy
Association, a leading Astronomy Association in Algeria, and
participated at the various activities and programs. All the activities
took place at the large and imposing el-Khalifa Cultural Center
in downtown Constantine from 7 to 9 October 2003.
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Never to our knowledge has Science being celebrated in such a popular
and festive way in our country. There was first a very successful
exposition with all the aspects of space explorations presented in
large explanatory panels and bulky scaled down models, from Spoutnik,
to Apollo, to Mir, to ISS, to Alsat, the first Algerian satellite
launched last year.
It included also a smarties corner with many activities and hand-on
projects, which was well attended throughout the three days of the
Salon. Some fifty prizes were distributed to the laureates during
the ongoing competitions held throughout the three days.
A special competition
was held Thursday afternoon with a participation of some 300 school
children from the various parts of Constantine.The show "Ten
slides, ten questions" masterly directed by a well known
astronomer, consisted of 20 questions, ten for each age category,
related to the space science, geography and astronomy.
Prizes were distributed
later to the winners of each category. In view of the many hundreds
of young kids who participated to the Salon, we certainly believe
that quite few have found new ways of dreaming and perhaps for some,
their future vocation!
In addition, various centers and agencies were in attendance to present
to
the public the realizations
and activities of Algeria in the space sciences; we mention the Algerian
Space Agency (ASAL) whose headquarters is in the Capital Algiers,
the National Center for Space Technology (CNTS) in Arzew, and the
Research Center in Astronomy,
Astrophysics and Geophysics
(CRAAG) at Bouzareah near Algiers (formerly the Algiers Observatory).
In addition, various amateur astronomy associations from different
parts of the country participated in this second Salon.
The scientific program of lectures
was even richer than the previous year, since six lectures were given
during the Salon,
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and one special visioning
session of the video SpaceView from the Hubble Space Telescope
Institute was scheduled, with Arabic translation followed by a debate.
We note that the media coverage was exceptional,
and that all the major national newspapers wrote about the Salon.
We mention in particular the leading newspapers in French (Le Quotidien
d'Oran, El Watan), and in Arabic (El-Khabar, El-Chourouq). In addition,
the local radio Cirta-FM, made a full coverage during the three days
of the Salon, and the event went on national TV news.
The remarkable thing about the Salon is the special ambiance of rejoice
which reigned,all infused with well felt scientific spirit. It was
really science in action, science brought to the people as a leisure
activity.
