Astronomy at school: present situation and future perspectives

TL;DR

This paper examines the current state of astronomy education in schools, highlighting misconceptions and proposing the development of didactic tools to enhance teaching and learning in astronomy topics.

Contribution

It presents an analysis of existing astronomy teaching practices and introduces a project aimed at assessing and improving astronomy education for students and teachers.

Findings

Identification of common misconceptions in astronomy among students and teachers

Need for specialized didactic tools to improve astronomy education

Initial insights into the learning situation in school astronomy topics

Abstract

Both the basic educational contents for students and study programs for science teachers include several topics in physics and astronomy, from the simplest ones to others as advanced as nuclear fusion to explain stellar evolution and space-time geometry for an approach to modern cosmology. In all these subjects, and most often in the simplest ones, alternative conceptions emerge, as both groups reach science course with preconstructed and consistent models of the universe surrounding them. In this work we present a series of basic questionings that make us reflect on the present situation of the teaching-learning relationship in astronomy within the framework of formal education. We then briefly explain our project aiming at finding the real learning situation of both students and prospective primary-school teachers in astronomical topics and, from the expected results of it, we point towards the need to develop didactic tools that could contribute to improve formal education in astronomy issues.