The present research investigates the perceptions of kindergarten students, and pre-service teachers from the Early Childhood Education Department at the University of Athens, concerning the frequency of the Moon's appearance in the night sky. ?he sample consisted of 15 people from each population group. Semi-structured interviews were conducted…

Modern astronomy as a field of inquiry may be shaped by what we consider the "scientific" ways of knowing. However, the history of astronomy as a human endeavour dates back millennia before the "modern" notions of "science". This long history means that astronomy is, at its core, built on a rich cultural diversity and…

Chile is home to most of the world's largest telescopes, and astronomy research is robust in the country. However, astronomy education in Chile is much less mature. As an effort to increase its quality and coverage, more astronomy K-12 teacher professional development (PD) has been offered in Chile in the last decade, but the results of these…

Astronomy is critical for human development, driving technology and innovation, and creating knowledge that allows humanity to understand the universe more fully. Women, however, remain underrepresented in this field. Many women leave the field before becoming established, yet little is known about women who persist and succeed. The purpose of…

Contribution: This article presents a Mars Exploration Control Virtual Simulation Experiment Platform (MEC-vslab), which aims to address the current challenge of limited integration between control engineering education and engineering practice. MEC-vslab is oriented toward the practical needs of Mars exploration engineering. It offers…

Science educators now broadly recognize the multimodal nature of learning in science, where learners make meanings within modes (linguistic, mathematical, visual, and actional) by using the conventions of different sign systems or grammars in these modes. However, how teachers guide students to link and infer new meanings across modes, called…

The purpose of this study is to reveal middle school students' model understanding and information sources of incorrect model related to basic astronomy topics included in the Turkish middle school science curriculum. The study is a descriptive study focusing on qualitative data. The sample of the study includes 197 students (aged 12-13) attending…

An internet poster recently floated the idea that friction with a recently denser interstellar medium causes global warming. Despite its superficially ridiculous nature, refuting this proposition is an interesting quantitative exercise.

This study aims to determine the alternative conceptions that middle school students may have about the structure of celestial bodies, celestial events and the motions of celestial bodies. Since qualitative and quantitative methods were used in the study, the study method is mixed. Since quantitative data were collected first and qualitative data…

While previous research has shown that claim-evidence-reasoning can effectively promote higher-order thinking skills in science education, more research should be done on using claim evidence-reasoning in elementary school settings. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of claim-evidence-reasoning in promoting the scientific reasoning…

Many students have difficulty understanding the concept of lunar phase changes (LPCs) due to spatial ability problems such as perspective-taking (PT) and mental rotation (MR). Therefore, this study aimed to compare brain activity during PT and MR tasks while performing the LPC task to determine the involvement of PT and MR. This study measured…

The present work refers to a study of 10-12-year-old students' ideas on the self- or hetero-luminosity of the Moon. To check the validity of students' reasoning on this question, we also examined their ideas on the lunar phases and how we see hetero-luminous objects. Students supported their ideas on the self- or hetero-luminosity of the Moon by…

Stellar observation, encompassing the study of star formation, stellar properties, and the governing physical laws, presents a readily accessible topic for many learners; however, many stargazing beginners may find it challenging. By applying the supplemental Gollin effect within animated display and the haptic effect of game-like play with a…

Historically, physics has been a predominantly male field, with previous literature showing that there is little diversity among U.S. physics students at the undergraduate and graduate levels or among physicists within the work force. Recent research indicates that the lack of diversity in physics is partially due to an unwelcoming climate within…

We present two studies to investigate the extent to which attending a planetarium presentation increases secondary school students' understanding of the apparent motion of the Sun and stars. In the first study, we used the Apparent Motion of Sun and Stars (AMoSS) test in a pretest/post-test/retention test setting to measure learning gains and…