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GAM Dark Skies Awareness Programs
Learn about light pollution and how you can help with these GAM programs.
Image credit: Wally Pacholka / AstroPics.com / TWAN
One of the main "take-away" messages from Global Astronomy Month (GAM) is why we should preserve our dark night skies. Even if you live in cities with too many bright lights, you can make a difference. With half of the world's population now living in cities, many people have never experienced the wonderment of a pristinely dark sky and maybe never will. "Light pollution" is obscuring people's long-standing natural heritage to view stars. Poorly-aimed and unshielded outdoor lights are the cause of most of the light pollution. They waste more than $2 billion (17 billion kilowatt-hours) of energy in the United States each year, for example. Under an unpolluted sky we ought to see more than a couple thousand stars, yet we see less than a hundred from many cities.
Several dark skies events and activities are being held worldwide on behalf of GAM to promote public awareness on how to save energy and save our night sky. The events range from things you can do in a few minutes, like the audio podcasts, things you can do in a day for adults and for kids, things you can do over a week's time, a campaign measuring light pollution, a photo contest and poetry on the importance of maintaining dark skies, a conference on light pollution and a year-round program to conserve places to observe a dark night sky.
All the GAM Dark Skies Awareness programs are listed below. Pick the one that's right for you and click "Read more..." for all the details. And for the curious person who wants to know lots more on light pollution issues and how they can make a difference, you can join the International Dark Sky Association's conference at Northeast Astronomy Forum (US).
Get Dark Skies Awareness Resources on the GAM Resources page
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What if you want to experience how much night sky we have lost to light pollution?
The GLOBE at Night program is a 2-week international citizen-science campaign to raise public awareness of the impact of light pollution by encouraging everyone everywhere to measure local levels of night sky brightness and contribute observations online to a world map. Action can speak louder than words sometimes. The act of measuring night sky brightness often shows people how serious light pollution has become. The campaign ended in the northern hemisphere on April 4, but continues until April 6 in the southern hemisphere. For more information, visit Globe at Night.
Northern Hemisphere March 22 to April 4, 2011
Southern Hemisphere March 24 to April 6, 2011
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International Dark Sky Week
What is a good way to get started on preserving light pollution?
International Dark-Sky Week 1 - 8 April
The first week of April celebrates International Dark Sky Week (IDSW). It’s a great time to host a neighborhood star party and introduce the idea of preserving a dark night sky to your community. A poster child example is the community of Harmony, Florida with their Dark Sky Festival on April 9. The main goal of IDSW is to raise awareness of the value of maintaining dark skies. Another goal of IDSW is to encourage efficient use of outdoor lighting. That is, lighting that lights where you need it, when you need it, and for amount of time it's needed. So if you participate, and you encourage your friends, relatives, and neighbors to participate, that could make a difference in the quality of the night sky and inspire those around us to preserve its beauty.
International Earth and Sky Photo Contest
What if you like photographing the night sky?
From now until Earth Day, April 22, an on-line “Earth and Sky” photo contest is open for submission by photography enthusiasts from around the world. The contest theme, “Dark Skies Importance,” has two categories: “Beauty of the Night Sky” and “Against the Lights.” Photos submitted to the contest should aim to address either category: either to impress people on how important and amazing the starry sky is or to impress people on how bad the problem of light pollution has become. Both categories illustrate how light pollution affects our lives.
For more information on the competition can be found at: The World at Night website.
Winners this year will be announced on April 30. You can also view last year's winners here.
World Night in Defence of the Starlight
Is there is a single day set aside emphasizing the right to starlight?
World Night in Defence of the Starlight happens on April 20 every year to remind us of the need to preserve our right to view a dark night sky full of stars and to take steps to prevent its disappearance. The World Night in Defence of the Starlight is promoted annually as part of our cultural, scientific and environmental heritage. Activities can include switching-off lights at night to recover the stars and save energy. Organize artistic competitions, exhibitions, media campaigns, or conferences on the beauty of the night sky. Create artistic materials like videos, music, books, stories, photographs or paintings on the beauty of the night sky. Identifying and possibly protect dark skies oases. Visit an astronomical observatory. Or organize a star party. For more information, visit the World Night website.
What can kids do to become involved in preserving dark skies?
During April, kids pick which activities to do to become Dark Skies Rangers. They can:
- Do energy saving kinds of things, especially by helping make the sky darker at night. Turning off outdoor lights at a curfew like 10pm is the easiest.
- Figure out how much energy is saved if they replace an outdoor light with a Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL). Use “Home Outdoor Lighting Audit” worksheet.
- Ask older family members to change out an outdoor light for a more efficient bulb and perhaps shield the bulb so that the light is directed downward and the bulb is not seen.
- Build a “Magnitude Reader". Use it when observing the night sky, and find out how light polluted their sky is.
- Form an astronomy club at school and help their teachers host a star party.
- Write to their city council on behalf of saving dark skies and saving energy.
- Create art, photos, music, poetry or stories on the importance of maintaining dark skies.
 What if you want to find and preserve dark sky places to observe from?
Available year-round, the One Star at a Time program is a worldwide effort to create accessible public spaces to view a starry night sky. The program uses night sky conservation to unite people across the planet. One Star engages the average citizen, individually or in groups, to cherish and protect the night sky through personal pledges, registration of public stargazing areas, and information sharing.
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Ten minute audio podcasts on dark skies awareness are available at 
