Workshop for Teachers of Introductory Astronomy

Extract

As interest in astronomy develops through missions to Mars, SETI, and heaven-only-knows-what earth-shaking new discoveries in the future, demand for astronomy courses at all levels will increase. Without adequate numbers of professional astronomers to teach them, persons from other fields will be thrown into the breech. Already a significant number of college students in the United States are receiving instruction from persons not trained in astronomy. I suspect that this is currently true world-wide, especially as physicists who adopt our field for their research on neutrinos or cosmic strings are assigned or volunteer to teach elementary courses.