VOLUME 1, Nº 1
DATE: FEBRUARY 2016
Reach the Sky Bulletin SLOVENIA IS A DIAMOND, VERY SMALL, AND PRICELESS To be honest, I didn’t know so much about Slovenia and its people in the beginning and really wondered what kind of an experience it will be. But if you ask me now, I can say that Slovenia is a diamond, very small, and priceless. It’s a wonderful country with breathtaking landscapes. A beautiful place for nature-lovers. Since we set off very early in the morning, we were a bit tired when we arrived in Sentjur. However, our Slovenian partner Jure’s warm welcome and the smiling faces of the students and their families who had come to meet us was more than enough to make us forget about our tiredness. When we arrived at the school, lots of surprises were waiting for us. I must confess that it was the sweetest school I have ever seen. I want to thank one more time to Jure, Maya, Niko and everybody who showed their friendship, warmth and sincerity. Our Romanian, Spanish and Polish partners were also very kind, positive and optimistic and we have had the chance of sharing intensively all the richness of our personalities, thoughts and ideas. By means of this project we proved that distances are not so important for becoming friends and I believe this spectacular co-operation will reach its main goal and we will remember this experience forever.
Cemil GÜLBAHAR Turkish Team
QIXI FESTIVAL The Qixi Festival, also known as the Qiqiao Festival, is a Chinese festival that celebrates the annual meeting of the cowherd and weaver girl in Chinese mythology. It falls on the seventh day of the 7th month on the Chinese
calendar. It is sometimes called the Double Seventh Festival, the Chinese Valentine's Day, the Night of Sevens, or the Magpie Festival. The festival originated from the romantic legend of two lovers, Zhinü and Niulang, who were the weaver maid and the cowherd, respectively. The Chinese folk tale is about a love story between Zhinü the weaver girl, symbolizing Vega, and Niulang, the cowherd, symbolizing Altair. Their love was not allowed, thus they were banished to opposite sides of the Silver River, symbolizing the Milky Way. Once a year, on the 7th day of the 7th
lunar month, a flock of magpies would form a bridge to reunite the lovers for one day. There are many variations of the story. The earliest known reference to this famous myth dates back to over 2600 years ago, which was told in a Chinese Classic poem. The tale of The Weaver Girl and the Cowherd has been celebrated in the Qixi Festival since the Han Dynasty. The Qixi festival inspired Tanabata festival in Japan, Chilseok festival in Korea, and Thất Tịch festival in Vietnam. Junqui Shao. Spain
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GRZESIEK´S IMPRESSIONS Taking part in any international project gives you various possibilities. You can take part in a student exchange and set off on a journey which may be the adventure of your life. You can learn something about the customs of different nations, meet new people and taste the life they live. But if you participate in an Erasmus+ project, the main purpose is to learn something more about astronomy. The trip to Slovenia gave us a lot of opportunities to improve our knowledge in this field. Already on the first day of our visit to Slovenia we were able to find out something about our Solar System. We couldn´t admire the real night sky because of the weather, but a little bit of technology came to our rescue. In the school gym, there was a portable planetarium in the shape of the ball. We could just lie on the floor and listen. The teacher was talking about different parts of the Solar System, constella-
tions and the origins of the names of the Zo- started with one of the easiest. On Friday, diac. we were working with Stellarium, which is a really helpful program for young On Thursday, we went to the Astronomi- observers. In the afternoon, we went to cal Observatory in Golovec. There, the work- Prevojre and took part in workshops on ers of the faculty of Mathematics and Physics astro photography and listened to lecof the University of Ljubljana, introduced us tures about the nature of the universe. A to the subject of modern methods of research young student - Urska opened our minds and observing objects on the celestial sphere to strangeness and mystery of the space. by means of modern telescopes. She tried to answer difficult questions, like “what is inside the black hole?”. Then In the afternoon, the students of one of we learned how to create a home-made the most active astronomical societies pre- comet. pared interesting workshops for us. We found out about light pollution, which is a As you can see, not only did we imserious threat for night sky observers. The prove our astronomy knowledge but students also helped us to understand how owing to many lectures, classes and big the universe is and how long took to cre- workshops we learned how to use our ate it. At the end of the classes, we created a knowledge in practice. All of this helped calendar where we put all the milestones of us open our minds to something totally the creation of the world in one year. new, explore the universe at a competely different side and understand some rules Contemporary astronomy is based on governing the universe. many complicated computer programs. We Grzegorz Góra, Poland
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WERONIKA´S IMPRESSIONS 1st International Erasmus+ meeting in Šentjur (Slovenia) took place from 24th to 30th November 2015. The whole journey was a great new experience for me. During the stay with my host family I had a chance to get to know a lot of new things about their country, culture, cuisine and the history of the region, especially Celje and Šentjur. The atmosphere in their house made me want to spend there all of our free time. Everyone there was friendly, hospitable and kind to me. I could also see how strong their family bonds are. Each of the students from Poland can say the same about the families they stayed with. My host was a person who I liked from the very beginning. We got along really well. We found activities which brought us a lot of fun, I couldn't be bored there. The programme which the Slovenian coordinators had prepared was really well- organised and varied. Each day was full of new interesting classes and exercices to do. We were able to learn there a lot and it was really a fun way of learning. We gained knowledge about astronomy, our Universe and planets of our Solar System. I think it will be useful not only at school but also in our lives. It's always better to know more. I really liked Slovenian pupils, all of them were friendly and helpful. They had done great job preparing the performance we saw on the first day. I think that the whole trip was worth participating in, for everything we were able to learn and see there in Slovenia. Weronika Pyzik, Poland
SPECIAL POINTS OF I NTEREST
http://reach-the-sky.splet.arnes.si/category/notices/
http://www.reachthesky.eu/
https://reachthesky.net
http://kromer-gorlice.pl/zwyciezcy-konkursu-na-grafikezgas-swiatlo-oszczedzaj-prad/
http://reachthesky.es/en_GB/
https://reachtheskyro.wordpress.com/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1649151051965368/? fref=ts