Astronomy Education in Primary Schools: Characteristic, Discrepancy, and Implementation

Astronomy Education in Primary Schools: Characteristic, Discrepancy, and Implementation

Presenter: Jin Zhu, Beijing Planetarium, 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).

Astronomy is a very important but quite different subject for school education, because of the characteristic of astronomy with the vast scale of universe. The frequently-appeared new discoveries and astronomical phenomena with grand observability make astronomy the most suitable tool to keep and improve the curiosity (and even integrity) of students. A text book on astronomy course in schools would be different with other subjects like language, art, math, and physics. Some special considerations for astronomy education in primary school should be noted.

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/

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/ Follow the IAU OAE on Twitter and Facebook under @astro4edu