The Adventures of Blu

“Blu is a very curious little being… you would call him extraterrestrial, and indeed he comes from a very distant planet, a tiny planet lost in our Galaxy that you won’t find on any map.

Blu is bored on his desolate little planet and so he decides to set off to explore space to try to understand the world around him.”

Thus begin the adventures of Blu, the new guide character created in 2018 for INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari by researcher Silvia Casu and instructional designer Alessia Luca, an expert in new educational technologies, and drawn by the skilled pencil of Marta Pinna.

After the character of Martina Tremenda, the protagonist of many of INAF’s outreach and educational activities in the Astrokids project, here is a new character designed for younger children, in the preschool and early primary school age range.

Blu is the protagonist of

• playful and educational workshops held during 2019 in some preschool classes or at festivals and public events;
• two pilot educational projects, designed in collaboration with teachers from the Maracalagonis/Ballao and Senorbì/San Basilio/Barrali schools, conducted in the 2018/2019 academic year. [1] [2]
• the video game “Blu Explores the Solar System”, a game/quiz to become a general of space exploration, developed on the Scratch platform by Silvia Leurini (INAF-OAC);
• the activity “How Much Do You Weigh in the Solar System?“, to discover how different gravity affects your weight on different planets, created on the Scratch platform by Maura Sandri (INAF-OAS Bologna);
• booklets and a video about the story of Blu, also in alternative augmentative communication (AAC);
• the booklet “Blu and the Planets of the Solar System“, where you can find information and curiosities about the planets of the solar system;
• playful activities to have fun with Blu
• the interactive multimedia app “The Adventures of Blu“, designed and developed by Alessia Luca (and the Infomouse Cooperative) as part of her internship at INAF-OAC [3]

Browse the attached documents to find the story of Blu and posters about the solar system (NB the ecoprint versions are designed for printing and can be colored by children).

[1] “Blu and the Sky. An astronomy education project for preschool based on the model of metacognitive cooperative learning “. S. Casu, A. Luca, G.L. Deiana, G. Alvito, Poster presented at the Italian Astronomical Society (SAIt) Congress in May 2019

[2] “Blu and the Sky: An astronomy education project for pre- (and primary) school children.” S. Casu, A. Luca, G.L. Deiana, G. Alvito, contributed talk at the IAU C1 Astronomy Education Conference, ESO-Garching, Munich, 16-18 September 2019, submitted

[3] “Using New Technologies to Improve Contents Accessibility“, S. Casu and A. Luca, contributed talk at IAUS 358, Tokyo 12-15 November 2019, IAUS358 Conference proceedings, in press