iStarDB (The Astronomy Education Research Repository)
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Introducing Recent NASA Discoveries into the Astro 101 Classroom with Modular Slide Sets
No full textThis paper summarizes the special interest group discussion about slides sets for use by Astronomy 101 instructors. The NASA Science Mission Directorate Astrophysics Education and Public Outreach Forum is coordinating the development of a pilot series of slide sets to help Astronomy 101 instructors incorporate new discoveries in their classrooms. The “Astro 101 slide sets” are presentations of 5–7 slides on a new development or discovery from a NASA Astrophysics mission relevant to topics in introductory astronomy courses. We intend for these slide sets to help Astronomy 101 instructors include new developments (discoveries not yet in their textbooks) into the broader context of the course. With their modular design and non-technical language, the slide sets may also serve audiences beyond Astronomy 101 instruction and are adaptable to different needs. An example on exoplanets was highlighted in this
session. In this paper, we outline the community feedback, which falls into the broad categories of content, format, uses, relevant topics, and future adaptations
Reflecting and Strategizing about Measuring EPO Impact
No full textThis paper is a result of a Special Interest Group workshop held at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific Annual Meeting on July 23, 2013. Members of the NASA Science Mission Directorate Education and Public Outreach (EPO) community and other EPO professionals reflected on program impacts across the spectrum of EPO. Questions considered during the workshop included the following: What have we learned from our work? How have we measured program impacts? How can we collaborate to determine next best steps for collectively measuring impact? How can
our individual programs and projects contribute towards a better understanding of the impact we are able to have as a community across a range of federal and non-federal
funding sources? This paper is a summary of the discussion
Defining and Measuring Impact for Ourselves
No full textThis paper describes a practical method to flexibly and robustly measure the impact of EPO programs
An Attempt to Improve Student Engagement with Class Content via a Student-produced Wiki
No full textIn a freshman-level honors astronomy class, an attempt was made to use a student-produced wiki to improve student engagement and connection with the class material. This attempt was not entirely successful due to unforeseen challenges such as the assignment being too open-ended and too time consuming to grade. Despite these challenges, the wiki was successful in encouraging the students to reflect more on the class material, and to connect that material to the “real world.” While the wiki assignment that was originally attempted will not be repeated in future classes, certain portions will continue to be used to enhance student engagement
The Universe of Societies in a Relative Perspective: Exercises of Ethnoastronomy
No full textThis work developed at the Planetarium of Pará employing workshops designed for visitor schools (public, private, specials groups), promotes the popularization of the Ethnoastronomy with the aim of diffusing values based on a cultural diversity tolerance and the need of harmonic interplay between people and environment. Using stories and debates, the relationship between humans and the Cosmos is traced from antiquity until today, with the help of slides as a didactic resource. Thus, many conceptions about the origin of the Universe are shown; as well as some constellations created along the History, ending with the present scientific manner of know and explain the World. We then demonstrate the links between space, time and culture with the Cosmos vision. The need to think the World within a plural context to create respect for other different persons is emphasized
Math on a sphere: Making use of public displays in mathematics and programming education
No full textScience on a Sphere (SoS) is a compelling educational display installed at numerous museums and planetariums around the world; essentially the SoS display is a large spherical surface on which multicolor high-resolution depictions of (e.g.) planetary weather maps may be depicted. Fascinating as the SoS display is, however, it is in practice restricted to the use of museum professionals; students (and for that matter, older museum visitors) are unable to create their own displays for the surface. This paper describes a working software system, Math on a Sphere (MoS), that democratizes the SoS display by providing a simple programming interface to the public, over the World Wide Web. Briefly, our system allows anyone to write programs for spherical graphics patterns, and then to upload those programs at a planetarium or museum site and see the result on the giant sphere. This paper describes the implementation of the MoS system; sketches a sample project; and concludes with a more wide-ranging discussion of our user testing to date, as well as strategies for empowering children and students with greater control of public displays
How effective is remote instruction for astrophysics?
No full textWhile the value of robotic telescopes in research is hardly contested, it is often assumed that effective astronomy teaching requires hands-on experience with a physical instrument. We examined the impact of student perceptions of remote instruction technologies in undergraduate astronomy projects at The Open University, UK. Key contrasts in attitudes and outcomes exist between more and less advanced cohorts, but our findings indicate that students value virtual telescopes as effective training for live instrument control and that remote observation can be coordinated effectively among multiple simultaneous non-colocated users
The Global Robotic Telescopes Intelligent Array For E-Science (GLORIA)
No full textGLORIA is a collaborative web-2.0 project based on a network of robotic telescopes, which has become the first free-access network opened to the world for public outreach and specially for e-Science projects
Hands-on-Science: Using Education Research to Construct Learner-Centered Classes
No full textResearch into the process of learning, and learning astronomy, can be informative for the development of a course. Students are better able to incorporate and make sense of new ideas when they are aware of their own prior knowledge (Resnick et al. 1989; Confrey 1990), have the opportunity to develop explanations from their own experience in their own words (McDermott 1991; Prather et al. 2004), and benefit from peer instruction (Mazur 1997; Green 2003). Students in astronomy courses often have
difficulty understanding many different concepts as a result of difficulties with spatial reasoning and a sense of scale. The Hands-on-Science program at UT Austin incorporates these research-based results into four guided-inquiry, integrated science courses (50 students each). They are aimed at pre-service K–5 teachers but are open to other majors as well. We find that Hands-on-Science students not only attain more favorable changes in attitude towards science, but they also outperform students in traditional lecture courses in content gains.
Workshop Outcomes: Participants experienced a research-based, guided-inquiry lesson about the motion of objects in the sky and discussed the research methodology for assessing students in such a course
Native Skywatchers and the Makoc.e Wic.aŋ˙hpi Wowapi—D(L)akota Star Map—Building Community Around Native Star Knowledge
No full textIn D(L)akota the Big Dipper is known as To/ToŋWiŋ—Blue/BirthWoman. She lives at the center of the scoop in the Big Dipper and is the doorkeeper between the star world and the Earth. The same group of seven bright stars is also known as Wic.akiyuhapi, the Stretcher, and Wa˙sihdapi/Wa˙siglapi, the Mourners. This is the beginning of the journey back into the spirit world for those leaving the Earth. Embedded in the native constellations are teachings that help guide and inspire
native peoples. This workshop will present the D(L)akota Star Map and constellations of the current night sky. The Native Skywatchers research and programming seeks out
elders, culture teachers, and community members to discuss the Ojibwe and D(L)akota star knowledge. Together we have created Makoc.e Wic.aŋ˙hpi Wowapi—D(L)akota Star
Map. This map and related curriculum was published and disseminated to regional educators at our Native Skywatchers Middle School Teacher workshops in June 2012
and 2013. We are building community around the native star knowledge