Astronomy: Towards a Didactic Focused on Interdisciplinarity

Astronomy: Towards a Didactic Focused on Interdisciplinarity

Presenter: Alvaro Folhas, NUCLIO, University of Coimbra, Portugal

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 arouses curiosity for the unknown and mobilises all areas of knowledge, promoting an interdisciplinary vision in which, the whole is always greater than the sum of the parts. A project focused on astronomy normally has the natural involvement of mathematics and physics, but it can also cover chemistry, biology, geography, ICT and the arts, especially if we associate it with astronautics and space exploration, the great levers of scientific and technological development, spilling over into our daily lives in the technologies we use today. It is important to bring astronomy to school, through its inclusion in the curriculum, or through small projects capable of mobilising and reinforcing learning, while helping to develop skills.

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