A meeting to interrogate the goals of astronomy education in the context of new educational technologies.

21st century technology enables astronomy educators to offer our students unprecedented hands-on learning experiences. Just as today’s Astronomers no longer spend long nights peering through eyepieces as the Herschels used to do, and current practitioners have no experience with photographic plates or prime focus cages, so too Astronomy Educators are recognizing the importance of making comparable advances in our classrooms and labs.

New Technologies, New Opportunities

The advent of robotic telescopes that enable remote—even unattended—collection of photometric, spectroscopic and even radio telescope observations, the proliferation of archival data that can be accessed anywhere, by anyone, to make new discoveries, and the availability of advanced computing resources, provide opportunities for 21st century Astronomy students to learn and participate in modern Astronomy—even in introductory courses.

Instead of direct transmission lecturing at our students about all the amazing discoveries astronomers have made, about all the things we’ve learned about our universe, we now have the option for them to BECOME the astronomers, by letting them collect their own observations – or utilize online repositories of high quality data – to make those discoveries for themselves!

The meeting will also provide opportunities to engage with some exciting workshops

We have entered a new era in Astronomy Education, in which mastering Astronomy concepts through lectures, textbooks, and simulated experiments are being replaced by data-focused learning that provides a more authentic experience for introductory Astronomy students.  This allows us to address many important open questions in the field.

It is the intention of this meeting to make a concerted effort to work on answers to these questions as well as provide skills, techniques and experience for those yet unaware of the great changes that have occurred in the past decade.

Meeting Themes

This three-day meeting will discuss six main themes that will guide the evolution of astronomy education in the 21st century

Within each theme we have a range of “dangerous questions“

CONTEXT

CONTEXT

Where does introductory astronomy courses fit in the larger picture of astronomy, STEM and broader education?

CONTENT

CONTENT

What are the appropriate content areas on which to focus our attention as we move into the middle of the century?

SKILLS

SKILLS

What are the skills, techniques and learning goals to provide students in the context of rapidly developing astronomy education technologies?

ENGAGEMENT/INTEREST

ENGAGEMENT/INTEREST

How do we positively influence students’ attitudes, self-efficacy and self-identity as scientists and citizens?

BEYOND THE CLASSROOM

BEYOND THE CLASSROOM

How are we matching the diverse set of needs and goals of our students?

RESEARCH FOR THE FUTURE

RESEARCH FOR THE FUTURE

How do we move forward in expanding astronomy education research to address the various “neglected” aspects of astronomy education?

Meeting Schedule

June 2
June 3
June 4
June 5

Social at Carolina Inn

June 2, 202417:00 - 19:30Carolina Inn

Event Starting In

The reason to join us

Join us for a three-day meeting at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

To discuss and experience the current state of our field and the objectives of modern Astronomy classrooms, the resources available to 21st Century Astronomy students, and the formation of a decadal plan for our rapidly evolving field.

Want to be kept in the loop?

If you want to be kept informed about the meeting,

sign up to our AstroEdUNC mailing list

What we will do

Aim of the meeting

What is out there

We will take stock of the technologies and investigation-driven curricula that exist already and/or are currently being developed

Get resources

Lay the groundwork for future funding opportunities

A new direction

Establish the goals and priorities for astronomy education moving forward.

Unlimited Possibilities

Rather than simply lecturing about Kepler’s Laws, with a few minutes’ effort students can collect a sequence of images of a gas giant and model the orbits of its moons to determine the planet’s mass. After winking back and forth to demonstrate the parallax shift in upheld thumbs, we can now actually image an asteroid simultaneously with robotic telescopes in two hemispheres and use the apparent shift to measure its distance. Instead of giving oversimplified descriptions of how star clusters teach us about stellar evolution, with reference to cartoon diagrams, introductory astronomy students can gather their own photometric data and perform their own complete cluster analysis in the time allotment of a single weekly lab. Those same students can now collect their own radio telescope data to measure the moon’s temperature, observe a pulsar and sonify the signal, measure the rotation rate of the Milky Way, or that of a distant spiral galaxy and estimate its distance using the Tully-Fisher relation. The list of possibilities that already exists—that many are already implementing in their own classrooms—goes on and on.

Organizing Committees

The choreographers of this revolution

Organizing Committee:

  • Daniel E. Reichart (UNC Chapel Hill)
  • Daryl Janzen (University of Saskatchewan)
  • Michael Fitzgerald (Las Cumbres Observatory)
  • Rachel Freed (UNC Chapel Hill)
  • Kalée Tock (Stanford Online High School)
  • Kate Meredith (GLAS Education)
  • Saeed Salimpour (Deakin University/IAU OAE)

Local Organizing Committee (UNC Chapel Hill):

  • Dan Reichart
  • Mae Dubay
  • Reed Fu
  • Donovan Schlekat
  • Andreas Buzan
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Our Sponsors

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Registration

Registrations for the inaugural AstroEdUNC meeting are now open!

Early bird registrations close:

April 15, 23:59 am EDT

Use Promo Code: EARLYBIRDASTROEDUNC2024

 

Registrations close: May 27, 23:59 am EDT

Register for the meeting

Note: Prices do not include Tax charges, these will be calculated when you register

Early Bird

$100

  • Use Promo Code: EARLYBIRDASTROEDUNC2024
Register Now

Regular

$150

  • You snooze,
    You lose
Register Now

Where to crash

On-campus Accommodation

$240

4 nights - Two bed occupancy

Add-on during the registration

A bit of nostalgia for all who spent time on-campus.

We have managed to secure on-campus rooms that are very affordable compared to hotel costs.

You can select this as an add-on when registering.

  • The cost is set for 4 nights = $240 (excluding the charges from eventbrite)
  • All rooms have two beds, so you are more than welcome to share with a colleague
  • If sharing, only one of you needs to add accommodation to the registration. Both of you still have to register separately for the meeting
  • The rooms have the usual luxuries expected of on-campus accommodation (WiFi, AC, bed, pillow etc)
  • The rooms come with Pillow, Pillow Slip, Twin Sheet, Twin Fitted Sheet, Thermal Blanket, Bath Towel, Wash Cloth
  • On campus parking is available at an additional estimated cost of $15 for the four days.

Where to crash

Local Accommodation

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