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Assessing the influence of one astronomy camp over 50 years

The International Astronomical Youth Camp has benefited thousands of lives during its 50 year history. We explore the pedagogy behind this success, review a survey taken by more than 300 previous participants and discuss some of the challenges the camp faces in the future.

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Fig. 1: Locations of the 55 IAYCs since 1969.
Fig. 2: Distribution of participant nationalities across all IAYCs.
Fig. 3: Number of IAYCs attended by survey respondents (left) and when they first attended (right).
Fig. 4: Careers of non-students aged 25–65.
Fig. 5: Photographs taken during the IAYC.

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Acknowledgements

Organizing the IAYC is a team endeavour. The camp would not exist were it not for the considerable efforts of more than 120 volunteers, and thus we acknowledge all current and past leaders who have made the camp possible since 1969, as well as all the participants who agreed to fill out the survey. We also thank the current members of IWA who provided comments on the final draft as well as N. Mórocza for her comments and advice on survey interpretation.

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Correspondence to Hannah S. Dalgleish.

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Dalgleish, H.S., Veitch-Michaelis, J.L. Assessing the influence of one astronomy camp over 50 years. Nat Astron 3, 1043–1047 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-019-0965-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-019-0965-y

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