Looking at the stars, looking at our phone: Theorizing online/offline experiences in an international urban astronomy program

• In Event: The complexities of digital transformations

Proposal

#popscope, short for “pop-up telescope,” a free, urban astronomy group co-founded by the author in 2014. The group’s three goals are democratizing astronomy knowledge, building community, and activating public spaces (“About”, 2023). Volunteer-run, #popscope has served 21,000 guests at 500 public “pop-up” astronomy nights, usually featuring a telescope set up on a busy city street corner, metro station, public park or other busy public space at locations in Malawi, India, Northern Ireland, Canada, the United States, and more. The group’s approach centers on setting up telescopes for public use in areas frequently underserved by formal or informal science programs (Falk, 2002; Buckland et al., 2020), including light-polluted areas (Nadybal et al., 2020).
Currently the author is making connections between practice and research by reflecting on the pedagogical significance of this urban outreach work that some describe as an astronomical educational “flash mob.” (Buxner et al., 2021). One pedagogical element is the significance of digital tools that support that in-person work of urban public astronomy. Reflecting this year’s conference theme of “Envisioning Education in a Digital Society,” this proposal is an exploration of the use and significance of these digital tools in #popscope activities.
As a conceptual piece that draws on an educational program, this proposal relies on the author’s reflections (Eberle, 2014) on their experiences as the co-founder of #popscope and educator in a variety of K-12 and higher education school settings over the last 10 years. Connections are made to other pedagogical concepts, including free choice learning (Falk, 2002), informal, digital education, and political polarization. The research also analyzes some organizational materials and digital tools including such as the organization’s website, #popscope manual (“#popscope ‘manual’ v4., 2017), digital planetarium tools, and GIS mapping of outreach activities. These reflections and connections are situated in the “single enmeshed reality” framework established by Chayko (2014, p. 679), in which online and offline learning is fully integrated.
The paper presentation will first outline the digital tools used to conduct outreach activities and maintain social connections with the public and between volunteers. While #popscope, as an example of informal science learning (Falk et al., 2021) is foremost an in-person activity (“About”, 2023) that connects people in person around a telescope, it makes extensive use of digital tools such YouTube, WhatsApp, organizational website, Google Drive and Google Meets, SMS messaging, Zoom, Flickr, virtual smartphone planetarium apps (e.g. Stellarium), and most recently online GIS mapping. How does a movement that’s predicated on in-person, often spontaneous events interact and reckon with its digital connectedness?
Secondly, the presentation will reflect on the role and significance of these digital tools in informal education settings and in the broader context of political polarization and residential segregation. Recently, for example, a volunteer with AstroAccel (National Science Foundation, 2023) has transformed records of in-person outreach events into a digital teaching tool by mapping #popscope educational activities from the last 10 years using Geographic Information System (GIS) software (Crampton, 2011). The result is an interactive GIS map that allows #popscope volunteers to reflect on their activities in relation to light pollution and residential segregation patterns to inform future outreach. This critical, justice-centered mapping is related with other educational mapping projects such as college access in racial segregated Rochester, New York (Dache-Gerbino, 2018) and light pollution (and access to dark skies) as an environmental justice issue (Nadya et al., 2020) in the United States.
There is a rich world of content and scholarship regarding informal online learning. These informal spaces include, for example, YouTube (Tan, 2013) and social networks (Greenhow & Robelia, 2009), and “virtual counter spaces” such those for Latina graduate students” that “support cultural affirmation, community building, knowledge sharing, and empowerment that enable their academic success” (Gomez & Cabrera, 2023, p. 1).
Cognizant of the informal learning and community building that occurs online, and the role smartphone use plays in mediating mood disorders, “self-soothing” and "stress relief” (Melumad & Pham, 2020, p. 239), the author is also aware of the isolating effect of smartphone dependence and its contribution to mood disorders. James et al. find a nuanced and “complex” relationship between online media consumption and “youth well-being, social connectedness, empathy, and narcissism” (James et al., 2017, p. 71).
Chayko (2024) explores “how digital (online) and face-to-face (offline) spaces become fully integrated and experienced as a single, enmeshed reality” (Chayko, 2014, p. 976). The net effect of digital tools may be positive (Chayko, 2014): “digital communication technology tends to strengthen social connectedness and prompt, not deter, face-to-face interaction and local community ties” p. 976). While digital tools have potential to foster online activities and for expressing historically marginalized identities, they also may contribute to a polarized political landscape and partisan media consumption. “Digital media polarize through partisan sorting,” (Törnberg, 2022, p. 1) thought the causal mechanism — how it happens is not yet clear.
The varied impact of digital communication stools on the political landscape can be seen in the range of its expression. Digital tools have variously celebrated or denounced as fostering democratic change or contribution got isolation and polarization from the Arab Spring” to Russian disinformation in 2016 U.S. election, and from expressions resistance on Chinese Twitter to COVID-19 lockdown protocols, to the threat of electoral Artificial Intelligence (AI) deepfakes.
The author looks forward to exploring the rich interdisciplinary complexities of this topic in a paper presentation at the 2025 gathering of CIES in Chicago. It may be that #popscope, as an example of informal science education, reflects the hybrid realities of online/offline life and learning that the estimated 5.45 billion Internet users (Petrosyan, 2024) –- a majority of the world’s population, though with varying levels of connectivity –- experience. While it is primarily an experiential and educational activity, #popscope has embraced digital tools to mediate and maintain its activities. There are lessons to be applied for consideration of online/offline learning in other formal or informal educational settings.

Author

• Michael O'Shea, Independent Scholar