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The Dark Sky Awareness (DSA) and the Galileo Teacher Training Program (GTTP) are cornerstones of the International Year of Astronomy. The main goal of DSA is to raise the level of public knowledge about adverse impacts of excess artificial lighting on local environments and help more people appreciate the ongoing loss of a dark night sky for much of the world's population. GTTP's goal is to create a worldwide network of teachers trained in the effective use and transfer of astronomy education tools and resources into classroom science curricula.

Both programs decided to launch a joint effort: "Dark Skies Ranger Campaign", for the new school year joining both cornerstones goals. Students will enhance their awareness of the growing light pollution problem, learn how to assess this problem and at the same time engage in the use of the science research method and techniques to evaluate it.

My Moon Campaign is the first joint effort of the Galileo Teacher Training Program (GTTP), one of the cornerstones of IYA2009, and World Space Week Association (WSW), globally celebrating space 4-10 October every year.

Our goal is to engage students in the study of several different aspects of the Moon, using whichever means they have available to reach this purpose: naked eye observations, small telescopes, binoculars, astrophotography, robotic telescopes, webcams, image databases, imagination, creativity, etc. and submit a report, present a project, an essay, anything that will make our natural satellite worthy of being called "My Moon" by the student.

The International Asteroid Search Campaign (IASC) is a program for high school and college students who search just hours-old astronomical images for original discoveries. These discoveries include Main Belt asteroids and near-Earth objects (NEOs). Students download the images on a daily basis, perform the analysis with provided software tools, and report their discoveries, which ultimately are recognized by the Minor Planet Center (MPC; Harvard University) and the International Astronomical Union (IAU).