Investigating Teachers' Integrations of Astronomy and Space in Formal Learning

This is a poster presented at the 6th Shaw-IAU Workshop on Astronomy for Education, organised by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE, http//astro4edu.org).

Title: 
Investigating Teachers' Integrations of Astronomy and Space in Formal Learning

Presenter:
Christine, Hirst Bernhardt (University of Maryland)

Many teachers have acted upon the inclusion of space topics in NGSS to embed space experiments into their courses. Consequently, various space entities provide low or no cost launch services and activities for K-12 classrooms. There has never been a holistic investigation of: a) Which programs teachers use b) How they use them c) How teachers’ perceive impacts on science learning and d) Impacts on teachers’ practice. Further, these teacher-led initiatives have not made significant roads into education literature. This qualitative study coded a survey instrument to ground student space experiments in science education literature by connecting the agentic opportunities of learning with and through space topics.

About the 6th Shaw-IAU Workshop:

The 6th Shaw-IAU Workshop took place:12 - 15 November 2024. The Shaw-IAU workshops focus on astronomy education for primary and secondary school students and teacher training both in universities and in service. This year's workshop featured two special topics: an exploration of the first two years of the James Webb Space Telescope for the scientific topic, and the crucial aspect of evaluation in educational contexts as the non-scientific topic.

More details can be found on: https://astro4edu.org/shaw-iau/

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