Using a Disco Ball to Observing the Sun - and Partial Solar Eclipses

Title: 
Using a Disco Ball to Observing the Sun - and Partial Solar Eclipses

Presenter:
Robert Cumming (Onsala Space Observatory, Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden)

Collaborator:
Alex G. M. Pietrow (AIP, Potsdam, Germany)

This was a poster presented at the 5th Shaw-IAU Workshop on Astronomy for Education, organised by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE, http//astro4edu.org).

For many students textbooks become the first contact point to kindle interest in a subject, like Astronomy explaining the day-to-day natural phenomena. Textbooks are instrumental in facilitating the scientific discourse in a classroom. Astronomy is introduced in middle school textbooks in many curricula across the world, most of the time it gets limited to mere collections of facts and observed phenomena, creating little appreciation for the nature of science. This study involved designing a framework for evaluating the completeness of the astronomy-related content in school textbooks. In this talk, I will present the case of two curricula from India to bring out the rationale behind the design and introduce the General Textbook Evaluation Tool developed for Astronomy content.

About the 5th Shaw-IAU Workshop on Astronomy for Education:
This year’s Shaw-IAU Workshop on Astronomy for Education focuses on two themes: one special practical astronomy education topic and one scientific topic. The special topic is astronomy education outside the classroom, looking at how astronomy can be taught in a diverse range of environments such as science centers, planetaria and youth clubs. The scientific topic is planetary atmospheres, both in the solar system and exoplanets as well as our own Earth. The workshop was organised by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (http://astro4edu.org). More details can be found on: https://astro4edu.org/shaw-iau/5th-shaw-iau-workshop/schedule/

Keep up to date with future Shaw-IAU Workshops and other opportunities at the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education by joining our mailing list https://astro4edu.org/mailing-list/

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