Photo: Vesna Milosevic-Zdjelar, Physics Instructor at UWinnipeg
WINNIPEG, MB – A new textbook titled ASTRO co-authored by a University of Winnipeg Professor, is a first for Canada and offers a new resource to star-gazing students. Previously, no other introductory astronomy textbook was produced for Canadian students or contained content about Canadian contributions to astronomy.
Ms.Vesna Milosevic-Zdjelar, Physics Instructor at UWinnipeg co-authored the book in collaboration with Waterloo – Laurier professors Shohini Ghose and Arthur Read.
What is new in this edition is a Canadian and international context. Numerous biographies of world acclaimed astronomers, who were Canadian, and went through the Canadian educational system, provide a role model for students. It highlights the numerous Canadian contributions to astronomy such as the CanadArm and the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, as well as many examples of international collaborations in astronomy, including the cutting-edge research at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. The book also includes a guide to the Canadian night sky and a discussion of Inuit astronomy.
“Students in multicultural, diverse Canada come from all over the world. It is inspiring for them to read about their own cultures’ contributions to research. Science today, astronomy in particular, is an international endeavor,” said Milosevic-Zdjelar. “Large telescopes placed around the entire earth and in space, which explores the births and deaths of the stars, origin of matter, and search for earth-like planets around other stars, bring humanity together in the same quest, overcoming all cultural and language barriers.”
The Canadian edition will be used in fall 2012 at UWinnipeg.
Vesna Milosevic-Zdjelar is a former astrophysicist from the National Observatory in Belgrade, Serbia, with research interest in dark matter and the Milky Way galaxy. She UWinnipeg’s Physics Department in 2000 after obtaining a degree in science education, and has made important contributions teaching science courses to non-science and life sciences students, and creating community awareness by initiating science outreach programs. She teaches a broad range of courses including Astronomy, Concepts in Science (which she created with Beata Biernacka and late Randy Kobes), Physics for Life Sciences and Physics of Music.
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MEDIA CONTACT
Diane Poulin, Communications Officer, The University of Winnipeg
P: 204.988.7135, E: d.poulin@uwinnipeg.ca
