Montreal Space Symposium 2019

As people with jobs and interests in space and astronomy, we are usually the first to decry light pollution in our urban skies. And rightly so. However, this message has gotten into the public mind and has had a negative impact: most people ignore the urban night sky entirely, unaware that there’s still magic to be seen.
While stars are hard to spot within the city sky, the Moon, the planets, and the International Space Station can be easily seen with the naked eye. 
These are a great launching pad to increase public interest in space and astronomy. But if we want to go beyond and grow this interest, we have to change our messaging.
In this presentation, I’ll talk about the various events, workshops, and telescope-in-the-street public outreach that Plateau Astro has been doing since forming it in spring 2018. I’ll also outline the data I’ve collected about public knowledge of space and astronomy and ways we can do better to connect.