Space Scoop website selected as one of the Great Websites for Kids by the American Library Association.

The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) Great Websites for Kids (GWS) has selected Space Scoop as one of ten best websites for kids. Space Scoop, which launched a dedicated website one year ago, provides the latest space news to educate and inspire children. It will be included in a compilation of exemplary websites for children up to 14 years of age, selected by the GWS Committee. ALSC is a division of the American Library Association (ALA).

Space Scoop is a news service for children, providing astronomy news on a weekly basis. The Space Scoop website (www.spacescoop.org) was launched one year ago as part of the European Commission-funded EU Universe Awareness and EU Space Awareness projects (www.unawe.org; www.space-awareness.org). Every week it brings the latest astronomy news in a form suitable for children and their teachers, with content provided by partner research institutes such as the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the European Space Agency (ESA), NASA Chandra and Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO), amongst others.  

The selection of Great Websites for Kids by the GWS committee occurs three times a year according to various selection criteria. The main criteria that are considered include authorship, purpose, design and stability, and content. According to the GWS Committee, “Great Websites for Kids are websites that are outstanding in both content and conception. These sites reflect and encourage young people’s interests in exemplary ways. Good websites should expand the imagination and enlarge the views of the child."

Space Scoop Project Manager Sarah Eve Roberts is honored by this recognition of Space Scoop: "This is fantastic news! To have Space Scoop selected as an exemplary website for children shows the appreciation and power of storytelling as a way to make the latest scientific discoveries accessible to young audiences. We are very grateful for the dedication of our volunteer translators who play a vital role in helping Space Scoop inspire children worldwide.”

Space Scoops are published in digital form and print, as well as a mobile app, podcasts and video games. In the spring of 2013 the Space Scoop story “The Universe is Big, Beautiful...and Mostly Invisible” was featured in an official South African textbook used in primary schools all over the country. Each Space Scoop is published at the same time as the original “adult” press release; then volunteers from all over the world translate the Space Scoops into 33 languages.

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