Among the D-Space project's objectives is raising public awareness for scientific and technological developments by motivating the wider public to actively participate in the process of realizing the beneficial impact of science and technology on our day-to-day lives. One way of successfully raising awareness and interest on science is to present science and scientific research through challenging activities combining intelligence, existing knowledge and innovation. Within the framework of the abovementioned objectives, a scientific contest in the general field of astronomy and astronomical observations will be launched in mid-March.

Participation
The SkyWatch 2006 contest will be addressing educators and teachers, mainly in the fields of Astronomy, Physics or Mathematics, who will be requested to propose interesting ideas and consequently implement them as scenarios for utilising a network of robotic telescopes in the classroom for educational purposes.

Description of the 1st phase of the SkyWatch 2006 contest
During 1st phase, the participants will propose ideas on designing lesson plans based on the use of Astronomical archives as well as the D-Space network of robotic telescopes, which afterwards (during the 2nd phase) develop and implement them in the classroom. According to their selection from the pool of the contest's 5 suggested contest topics, participants are free to use additional scientific material from other sources, but the use of at least one observation from the D-Space data base is obligatory.

All projects will be presented and assessed following specific criteria that will be applied by the project's scientific committee.

An initial selection procedure will be established that will lead to the creation of a pool of the 30 best projects.

Participants must also describe their request for observations that will be conducted by the D-Space Network of Robotic Telescopes if they succeed to qualify to the 2nd phase of the contest.

Description of the 2nd phase of the SkyWatch 2006 contest
The observation requests of the 30 best scenarios qualified to the 2nd phase of the contest will be scheduled in the software of the D-Space Network of Robotic Telescopes. In this phase the participants will be assigned to implement an educational scenario in the classroom based on each project's main idea. Since the time in which the participants will be provided with their observations depends on exogenous parameters such as weather conditions and visibility of the specific astronomical subject during the period of the 2nd phase, the requested task as well as the overall evaluation will not depend on whether the participants include these observations in their project or not.
The final submission will include the initial project of the 1st phase as well as the results of the realised lessons of the 2nd phase. The final evaluation of the submitted projects will follow and will lead to the distinction of the 10 best educational scenarios.