Abstract
We present our outreach program, the Thailand–UK Python+Astronomy Summer School (ThaiPASS), a collaborative project comprising UK and Thai institutions and assess its impact and possible application to schools in the United Kingdom. Since its inception in 2018, the annual ThaiPASS has trained around 60 Thai high-school students in basic data handling skills using Python in the context of various astronomy topics, using current research from the teaching team. Our impact assessment of the 5 day summer schools shows an overwhelmingly positive response from students in both years, with over 80% of students scoring the activities above average in all activities but one. We use this data to suggest possible future improvements. We also discuss how ThaiPASS may inspire further outreach and engagement activities within the UK and beyond.
Highlights
ThaiPASS (Thailand–UK Python+Astronomy Summer School) is an overseas development assistance (ODA) outreach project focusing on building students’ programming skills for the future
Future ThaiPASS summer school lecture material should be accessible, engaging and relevant, with measurable outcomes for student progression which they can appreciate at the end of the course
For ThaiPASS’19, some changes to the questionnaire were made, and a pre- and post-school survey was undertaken with the intention of trying to better measure the impact of the school
Summary
ThaiPASS (Thailand–UK Python+Astronomy Summer School) is an overseas development assistance (ODA) outreach project focusing on building students’ programming skills for the future. ThaiPASS brings UK professional astronomers to Thailand, to train 16–18 year-old Thai students in using Python for data handling, analysis and mining. 60 students and 19 teachers from 30 Thai schools participated in the first two ThaiPASS events. Each summer school comprised a series of lectures and hands-on sessions over the course of a week, focusing on various topics in astronomy. Students brought their own laptops, and additional online computing facilities were provided in collaboration with the University of Victoria, Canada, as part of their Cyberhubs initiative [2]. A full overview of ThaiPASS can be found at the respective 2018 and 2019 summer school websites
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