Game-based Learning (GBL) environments make instruction flexible and interactive. Positive experiences depend on personalization. Student modelling has focused on affect. Three methods are used: (1) recognizing the physiological effects of emotion, (2) reasoning about emotion from its origin and (3) an approach combining 1 and 2. These have proven…

The purpose of this study is to examine the changes in prospective pre-school teachers' attitudes towards astronomy in terms of their grades. The study was conducted with 205 prospective teachers (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th graders) studying in the education faculty of a university in Eastern Anatolia region of Turkey. Astronomy Attitude Scale (AAS) was…

This year, as every year, was a period of change, innovation and great progress for the Smithsonian. Among many accomplishments, the Smithsonian marked an extraordinary milestone: the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. This breathtaking museum gives proper place, now and forever, to a vital part of America's…

Virtual reality (VR) learning environments can provide students with concepts of the simulated phenomena, but users are not allowed to interact with real elements. Conversely, augmented reality (AR) learning environments blend real-world environments so AR could enhance the effects of computer simulation and promote students' realistic experience.…

Astronomy and astrophysics are very popular with pupils, but the experimental work they can do tends to be rather limited. The search for life elsewhere in the Universe ("exobiology") has received an enormous boost since the detection of a rapidly increasing number of planets ("exoplanets") orbiting other stars in our galaxy. Recently (March…

Each fall, the Statistical Research Center conducts its "Survey of Enrollments and Degrees" which asks physics and astronomy departments to provide information concerning the number of students they have enrolled and counts of recent degree recipients. In connection with this survey, the authors ask for the names and contact information for their…

This annotated resource guide presents 133 pieces of music inspired by astronomical ideas, discoveries, or history, organized in 22 subject categories. Both classical and popular music are included, but only when a clear connection to astronomy could be established. Depending on your musical tastes, you are likely to find some pieces resonating…

Two coordinate systems are related here, one defined by the earth's equator and north pole, the other by the orientation of a telescope at some location on the surface of the earth. Applying an interesting though somewhat obscure property of orthogonal matrices and using the cross-product simplifies this relationship, revealing that a surprisingly…

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Astronomy Education Research.] We examined teachers' spatial-scientific reasoning and the alternative conceptions they held regarding Earth-space content. While participating in a professional development (PD) workshop, teachers engaged in an integrated mathematics and science project-based unit…

Elementary students find it difficult to connect the apparent motion of objects in the sky with how celestial objects actually move in the solar system. As a university astronomy education researcher, the author has been investigating methods to help children learn astronomy through workshops and summer camps at science museums and planetariums.…

Many topics in introductory astronomy at the college or high-school level rely implicitly on using astronomical photographs and visual data in class. However, students bring many preconceptions to their understanding of these materials that ultimately lead to misconceptions, and research about students' interpretation of astronomical images has…

The purpose of this study was to examine the changes in pre-service Science teachers' astronomy achievement, attitudes towards astronomy and skills for spatial thinking in terms of their years of study. Another purpose of the study was to find out whether there was correlation between pre-service teachers' astronomy achievement, attitudes towards…

Learning astronomy involves significant spatial reasoning, such as learning to describe Earth-based phenomena and understanding space-based explanations for those phenomena as well as using the relevant size and scale information to interpret these frames of reference. This study examines daily celestial motion (DCM) as one case of how children…

A great amount of research has been carried out world-wide to promote history of science as a powerful science teaching tool. Because the ways of choosing and using historical elements depend on teachers' or researchers' educational purpose, any attempt to support a single model-to-use seems difficult and probably irrelevant. However,…

Understanding how blogs can support collaborative learning is a vital concern for researchers and teachers. This article explores how blogs may be used to support secondary education students' collaborative interaction and how such an interaction process can promote the creation of a Community of Inquiry to enhance critical thinking and…