Developing and Practising Astronomy Curricula for Students Aged 5-6

Developing and practising astronomy curricula for students aged 5-6: Stella Yang at the OAE’s 4th Shaw-IAU Workshop

Presenter: Stella Yang, China West Normal University, School of Physics and Astronomy, Nanjing, China.

This was a poster presented at the 4th Shaw-IAU Workshop on Astronomy for Education, organised by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE, http//astro4edu.org).

To explore how to develop a kindergarten astronomy curriculum suitable for Chinese children, we conducted a year-long school-based astronomy curriculum development and practice in a public kindergarten in Sichuan. Initially, we researched the national policy and the cognitive situation of astronomy in this early childhood class. We chose the eight solar system planets as the theme, incorporated the teaching concept of hands-on learning, and used handicrafts and games as the main activities and knowledge transfer as the support. After the development, we started a weekly 90-minute course practice for six months. It has been proved by practice that the course content “The Eight Planets” eveloped by us is very suitable as an enlightenment course for young children.

About the 4th Shaw-IAU Workshop:

The topic for this year’s Shaw-IAU Workshop on Astronomy for Education is ‘Leveraging the potential of astronomy in formal education’ and is scheduled to run 15 to 17 November 2022 as a fully virtual event on Hopin as in previous years. This year’s Shaw-IAU Workshop focuses on the role of astronomy in the core regions of formal, primary and secondary, education: How do we teach astronomy as its own subject? What is the role of astronomy in teaching physics or chemistry – or in communicating such a central future topic as climate change? In sessions marked with a * we aim to hear specifically from teachers. We also address the question of how to approach those who set the framework for teaching: How can you get your administration, or at a much higher level: your education ministry, to listen to you? Last but not least we look at how to bridge the divide between the fundamentals that are commonly taught in school and results from cutting-edge research, which tend to be fascinating to students and the general public alike. he 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/4th-shaw-iau-workshop/

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