Exhibition “Astronomical alphabet: learning is a right”

Exhibition “Astronomical alphabet: learning is a right”

• Mirador Interactive Museum, Punta Arenas Avenue 6711, La Granja.
• Until August 31st.
• Down payment: $7,000.

With the exhibition “Astronomical alphabet: learning is a right”, UNICEF and the Mirador Interactive Museum celebrate children on their day. The exhibition offers information about the universe and its mysteries in a fun and accessible way, through colorful illustrations that explain concepts such as black holes, DART, FANI, Hubble, magnetars or quasars.

The exhibition, which will run throughout August, is an abbreviated version of the book “Astronomical Alphabet,” produced by UNICEF together with its ambassador, astronomer Teresa Paneque, and illustrator Pedro Prado, which addresses concepts from A to Z related to the cosmos.

UNICEF Deputy Representative Glayson dos Santos explained that “this exhibition allows children and adolescents to access new knowledge with educational material made especially for them. In this way, we hope to contribute to their being able to exercise their right to have information that contributes to the development of their capacities and allows them to form their own opinion on different topics, as established by the Convention on the Rights of the Child.”

Launch

On August 14 of this year, it will be 34 years since the State of Chile ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, being the sixth country in Latin America and the 25th worldwide to ratify this international treaty.

The launch was attended by the Undersecretary for Children, Verónica Silva, who thanked the presentation of the exhibition to celebrate the month of childhood. “UNICEF, together with its ambassador Tere Paneque and the MIM, allow with this exhibition that parents can talk with children about these issues. It is a tremendous sign, in a month like this, where what we have to do is encourage communication and conversation between children and adults. Adults have to be more open to listen to children and let them tell us how they see the world,” emphasized the Undersecretary.

“This exhibition and this glossary help us to approach knowledge that is very abstract, and it does so through the strategies of creativity and imagination. And this seems very important to us, because it is essential for the museum to be a space for the expansion and appropriation of knowledge in the communities,” said Enrique Rivera, director of the MIM.

The UNICEF Deputy Representative added that astronomy is a characteristic that distinguishes Chile and is part of its identity and wealth. “Chile is famous for the characteristics of its skies, especially in the north, for astronomical observation. We hope that experiences such as those offered by this exhibition will be an inspiration for astronomers of the future.”

The MIM has prepared an Editorial Station for children and adolescents around the exhibition, where they can use the strategies, tactics and tools of art to express themselves.

Meanwhile, the Children’s Ombudsman, Anuar Quesille, said that this exhibition is a very good way to bring the right to learn closer to children and adolescents. “We believe that this UNICEF initiative reflects a right that is understood to be complex, but through the alphabet they invite us to discuss a topic that is of interest to children in an interactive and entertaining way. Initiatives like these help us to guarantee the fulfillment of a right as important as the right to learn.”

The launch of the exhibition was attended by the Undersecretary for Children, Verónica Silva, the Undersecretary for Early Childhood Education, Claudia Lagos, the National Defender of Children, Anuar Quesille, along with families and children who visited the exhibition.