Astronomy Education

A small working group seems to be our solution to nearly every problem. I've nothing against small working groups, but I've found from experience that unless you have some kind of agenda worked out well in advance, you'll waste a lot of time. I'd recommend highlighting a couple of areas for discussion and then meeting to discuss them.

Personal priorities;

Transition Year

Adult Ed / Evening classes

Both of the above, if placed on any kind of formal setting with DoES, NCCA et al., will need to be devised by qualified persons, including those with degrees in Astronomy or equivalent and those with the Principles of Education (that would be me! )

Shane, thanks for volunteering!

I've a couple of ideas regarding IFAS involvment in this area, which I'll be happy to discuss with you

If anyone else is interested in taking part in the working group please pm/email shane.

Cheers,
~Al

it may not be necessary to design anything! The material is already there. Nor do we have to have any courses acreddited by a university! If for example IFAS thought the unacredditied American AAAS course was okay then that is that.
The ASSESSMENT is what would have to be carefully constructed.
But my main point was really what material should be covered at what level and how much time it should take.
You can have a "working group" talking about it all day but to be frank if I want to teach a course I will. If I want an accredite university one they i will just use their syllabus and inform people wher they can do exams after they do my course. If people dont have time to do so much I might just do a ten point OU course. Why re invent the wheel if the OU or Lancaster already have the material covered?

This is what I want to discuss. Who has looked at the OU/Lancaster/AAAS material? What would they leave in/out and how many hours would they spend on planetary science/ Lunar/ astration/ xenobiology etc.

That to me is the point of an education forum; discuaaing teaching and learning astronomy.

Mind you I have no problem in discussing the issues mentioned.

You can have a "working group" talking about it all day but to be frank if I want to teach a course I will.

Which is fine if you already have the presentations and handouts and coursework designed. If say a local astronomy club wants to run a course or someone wants to start a course in the local VEC, then having a premade course with materials prepared with IFAS and whoever else we can rope in makes the idea of running a course easier, and more likley to happen. Of course there is more to running a course than just printing off notes, but one of the most daunting aspects is putting the course together. I'm coming at this from a differnt perspective than you I think - what can we do to encourage more people to take up astronomy - one way is to provide more courses, and one way to do that is to make courses easier to give.

This is what I want to discuss. Who has looked at the OU/Lancaster/AAAS material? What would they leave in/out and how many hours would they spend on planetary science/ Lunar/ astration/ xenobiology etc.

Well the first two are undergrad programs and so dont do a basic 'how to find your way around the night sky' intorduction. Local astronomy courses are probably going to want to start with that. Personally I would build a course around whats easily observable. Firstly an introduction to the constellations and mention the galaxies that can be seen and basic cosmology to put eveything in context. Then onto the planets. Then on to stellar evolution using the different colour stars visible as the practical link, tied in with various types of nebulae. Finally cover the milky way and its mechanics. Then come back to more detailed cosmology and the structure of the universe. You can scatter in topics on 'tools of astronomy' etc. into this mix at any point, and leave enough room for when your course goes off on tangents of what people want to discus.

That could be done in a modest enough timeframe. One problem with university based courses, is that they are part of a larger program and so cant give you a good grounding in astronomy. Even the 10 point OU courses wont cover as much as you can in say a 10 week course. I can't find details of the AAAS course.

Cheers,
~Al

By the way folks, please feel free to start educational threads in the General section. If there is enough volume then we can create a separate topic.

I've been watchign this thread and the votes and I've come to the conclusion that we'll wait and see on this one. If enough Education related threads becoem active in general then we can set up and education board and move them over there.

Baisically we'll wait and see!

Anyone want to get this small tight working group idea moving sometime early in the New Year? We could set the agenda here then meet up somewhere central, like Portlaoise, for further discussions.