IAU Dark Skies Ambassadors Program
Summary
The IAU Dark Skies Ambassadors is a program that invites keen enthusiasts worldwide to be dark sky advocates and spread the word of the concern of light pollution. Dark Skies Ambassadors organise actions, get others to do events and/or do events, and help advertise events. Joining the program could also create a peer-supporting environment and provide visibility of events.
Who can join?
We welcome wholeheartedly individuals or organizations who are interested in promoting dark sky protection and had organized at least one dark-skies related activity to join us.
Categories
We have three categories to entice different levels of participation. The Silver Level could be a starting point and as you contribute more time and talent toward events or other actions that spread awareness, the status will grow with the experience of organization of dark-sky actions or events, to the Gold Level and ultimately, to the Platinum Level. The table below provides a description of the categories.
| Status |
Who? |
Experiences requirement |
Other criteria |
| Silver |
Individual or Organisation |
Anyone or any organization who has organized/hosted at least 1 dark-skies related action/event |
|
| Gold |
Individual or Organisation |
Anyone or any organization who organized/hosted at least 12 dark-skies related action/event |
|
| Platinum |
Individual or Organisation |
Anyone or any organization who organized/hosted at least 24 dark-skies related action/event |
Any significant individual or organization honoured by the IAU for its dark-skies related activities |
The role
Dark Skies Ambassadors shall promote the importance of dark-sky protection by conducting or motivating others to conduct any of the following:
- Conduct classroom or after-class educational activities (such as using the resources linked on darkskies4all.org or the Turn on the Night kit to provide workshops);
- Organize teacher training or community workshops;
- Organize actions around the International Day of Light 16 May;
- Participate or advertise dark-sky campaigns (such as Globe at Night);
- Give presentations on light pollution;
- Identify bad lightings and inform your local government, and explain to them why they are bad;
- Promote awareness to the journalist;
- Advocate for lighting ordinances or monitor your night skies;
- Talk to your neighbours on good lighting;
- Share the Dark Skies messages with the communities;
- Writing articles or promoting on social media;
- Promote the best practices of the use of lightings (use full cut-off fixtures, low colour temperature <3000K lighting, no blue-rich white LEDs);
- And any other innovative ideas.
Why should I join?
- Very simply, you should join because we all love dark skies and want to protect dark skies.
- Through this program, collective actions among all ambassadors can generate a bigger impact.
- Everyone who organize at least one activity will receive a certificate.
Any more details?
- All members join the program will be allocated for a personal profile page to features your events, actions and stories.
- An online community will be set up to share experiences among us.
- We work very closely with dark skies protection partners to make this collective effort complementary and supporting each other.
- Dark skies protection is a long term effort and we need a long-term network. This project will not end after 2019. 2019 is only the start.
