Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Participants
- Welcome and Opening Address
- Astronomy Education: an International Perspective
- Special Lecture: Sundials in London – Linking architecture and astronomy
- 1 University Education
- 2 Distance Learning and Electronic Media in Teaching Astronomy
- 3 The Student Learning Process
- 4 Planetarium Education and Training
- 5 Public Education in Astronomy
- 6 Teaching Astronomy in the Schools
- Posters
- Final Address
- Authors
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 June 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Participants
- Welcome and Opening Address
- Astronomy Education: an International Perspective
- Special Lecture: Sundials in London – Linking architecture and astronomy
- 1 University Education
- 2 Distance Learning and Electronic Media in Teaching Astronomy
- 3 The Student Learning Process
- 4 Planetarium Education and Training
- 5 Public Education in Astronomy
- 6 Teaching Astronomy in the Schools
- Posters
- Final Address
- Authors
Summary
Eight years have elapsed since the first IAU Colloquium (No. 105) on astronomical education “The Teaching of Astronomy”. In that time there have been substantial changes in the world of education – not just astronomical education. On the one hand, there has been erosion of funding, while on the other there has been an unprecedented opening up of access to information: there has been a change from educational experiment towards more regulation of curricula and determination of standards. But, as a reading of this volume will clearly show, there is still a healthy creativity in astronomy education. There is much important new work being done – there are adventurous schemes in public education, there is new detailed research on how our students and pupils may learn and on the portfolio of misconceptions under which they may be labouring when first confronted with astronomical teaching. One of the new features since 1988 is access to the Internet. An overwhelming variety of information is now readily available from the latest Hubble Space Telescope picture to the Web Page of the local astronomy society. But it is also clear that the sheer richness and variety of the Internet offering creates yet another problem – how to organise that information to maximum teaching and learning benefit. The North American continent is once again in a period of curriculum renewal and it is of great interest to see the interaction between that renewal, electronic media and the Internet. Such enterprises are receiving support in particular from the National Science Foundation in the USA. It is encouraging to see that the Internet is being used to support undergraduate projects.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- New Trends in Astronomy Teaching , pp. xi - xiiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998