Abstrakt
Astrobiology is a field that captures the interest of the general public as well as scientists. The prospect of finding life elsewhere in the universe is a great driving force of interest in space sciences.
An astrobiological framework can thus be used to bring the public's attention to new insights in many related fields. We present an outreach program consisting of several levels of public engagement, aiming at educating people with an existing interest in science as well as a wider audience.
We have organized a cycle of astrobiology popular science talks by invited professionals from fields ranging from cryoecology to astrochemistry, geology of Mars or geophysics of icy moons. The lectures, which are freely available on YouTube, were integrated with other educational activities with a wider impact, most importantly science articles for magazines and websites.
In the popular science magazine Vesmír, we introduced a series of astrobiology-themed articles focused chiefly on what makes a planet habitable, which allows to very accessibly introduce topics such as advances in heliophysics, atmospheric physics, geophysics and other fields, and we prepared a series of more generally-themed astrobiology popular science articles for the XB-1 magazine. Astrobiology can present a useful framework for fun and comprehensive space education that can be used anywhere not only for the general public, and we are currently building upon it to extend the range of educational programs.