The Liaison Committee between School-Teachers and Astronomers (in French, “Comité de Liaison Enseignants Astronomes” or CLEA) was officially created about ten years ago under its present form, but its story began in 1970. In that time, there was no astronomy at all in French school programs, neither in elementary nor in secondary schools.

A discussion was beginning about introducing physics earlier in the curriculum, with a specific purpose, the main ideas being (i) to avoid too much formalism (and formalism is a strong general characteristic of French science teaching) and (ii) to concentrate on experimentation and on the various representations of natural phenomena.