There is a concern in many countries with participation rates in science. One response to this has been a proliferation of university run science outreach programs that aim to both engage and retain students in science. Previous studies of outreach programs have tended to take into account the perspectives of just a few stakeholders in the…

The "Next Generation Science Standards" identifies argumentation as a central practice, and, subsequently, energizes teachers to develop students' capacity to write well-reasoned arguments and support their claims with relevant evidence. These skills now expected in the science classroom have long been central to instruction in…

Students often find astronomy and astrophysics to be most interesting and exciting, but the Universe is difficult to access using only one's eyes or simple equipment available at different educational settings. To open up the Universe and enhance learning astronomy and astrophysics different planetarium software can be used. In this article we…

Without question, one of the most useful tools an astronomer or physicist can employ to study the universe is spectroscopy. However, for students in introductory physics or astronomy classes, spectroscopy is a relatively abstract concept that combines new physics topics such as thermal radiation, atomic physics, and the wave and particle nature of…

In the nonmajor science classroom, case studies--when used as learning tools--should help students build the necessary framework to understand the nature of science. For most students, the nonmajor science course (in this case, Astronomy 101) may be the last time that they interact with science in a formal learning setting. A National Science…

This study focused on how culture of peace and care for the planet earth variables predicted public coeducational secondary school students understanding of chemistry concepts in Anambra State of Nigeria. Three research questions guided the study. It was a survey and correlational research designs that involved sample of 180 drawn from six schools…

Micrometeorites originate from small pieces of rock from space colliding with the Earth's atmosphere at high velocity, such as the Perseid meteors which hit the atmosphere at 60 km/s. When they do so, they burn up, causing a flash of light that we see as a meteor. Many groups have been successful collecting these particles using various devices.…

An introductory Astronomy survey course is often taken to satisfy a college graduation requirement for non-science majors at colleges around the United States. In this course, material that can be broadly categorized into topics related to "the sky", "the Solar System", "the Galaxy", and "cosmology" is…

The field of astrobiology is concerned with the origin, evolution, and distribution of life in the Universe. It contains within it civilization-level questions such as: What is the future of humanity on Earth and can we successfully explore and settle other planets? As such, it offers an educational framework for both teaching basic science and…

This paper reports on the results from administering a modified version of the Introductory Astronomy Questionnaire (IAQ) to middle school students and preservice science teachers in Norway. Ranking tasks formed a key part of the instrument, and we detail a new method for analyzing ranking task data. One of our main findings was that even after…

In December 2015, the media was full of Tim Peake and his adventures as he set off for the International Space Station as the first British ESA astronaut. The author set up a class blog as well as a Twitter account and created cross-curricular units of work around the "real" experience. Children really raised their game when they were…

What follows is a description of the procedure for a directed-study in which a student, guided by a faculty member, attempted to identify potentially habitable exoplanets using actual data available online from NASA's "Kepler" Mission.

The aim of this study is to study the effect of using planetariums as an outdoor learning environment regarding students' opinions. Therefore, descriptive qualitative research was used. The participants were from a school in Istanbul. Ten students, 4 male and 6 female, participated in a planetarium visit to a museum. The data of the study were…

Astronomy is one of the oldest STEM enterprises today. It is a discipline through which technology has been advanced, as well as our understanding of the universe. Further, astronomy is a gateway science that inspires the imagination of young learners, and can be used to promote STEM careers. In order to advance the astronomy enterprise, we must…

This report provides data on the size of degree-granting physics and astronomy departments by examining the number of bachelor's degrees awarded and the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) faculty members employed. The benchmarking data in this report is intended to allow physics and astronomy departments to see how they fit in the national…