Submission + - Poll: How much Astronomy were you taught in school? (balrogslair.com)
Balrogg writes: I've been a lifelong amateur astronomer, and space enthusiast; in recent years, I've been doing increasing amounts of astronomy outreach. Wherever I setup my telescopes, I find that a majority of the people had NEVER looked through a telescope.
There's no reason in the world, you should go through school, never having looked through a telescope.
Every time I ask people about how much astronomy they covered during their schooling, they tell it was either: not covered at all, covered for a few days, or maybe for a single quarter. This includes people of ALL ages, but most disturbingly, people in their teens and twenties.
If students are fortunate enough to have a teacher like my wife, who actually knows (and likes) astronomy, they'll get a LOT of good information crammed into whatever brief time she's allotted to cover astronomy. But even as amazing a teacher as my wife is, that time is simply not sufficient anymore Within the subject of astronomy, there's too much that should be taught.
It has been my experience that ignorance of astronomy is at near epidemic proportions. It is my very firm conviction that EVERY student in this country (and planet, really) should be taught and experience astronomy during their school years. It needs to start earlier, around the 3rd or 4th grade, and be taught not just for one single quarter — but over the course of several years, integrated with Physics, Chemistry, Math, and History.
Carl Sagan once said that learning about astronomy is a humbling and character building experience; I can attest to that fact. Astronomy is a subject that inspires you to branch out to other scientific disciplines: geology, chemistry, biology, physics, engineering, math, etc. Neil deGrasse Tyson frequently talks about how NASAs Moon missions inspired a generation to dream about tomorrow — it certainly did for me. We need a return to this type of thinking, to inspire students and young adults to become engineers and scientists.
There's no reason in the world, you should go through school, never having looked through a telescope.
Every time I ask people about how much astronomy they covered during their schooling, they tell it was either: not covered at all, covered for a few days, or maybe for a single quarter. This includes people of ALL ages, but most disturbingly, people in their teens and twenties.
If students are fortunate enough to have a teacher like my wife, who actually knows (and likes) astronomy, they'll get a LOT of good information crammed into whatever brief time she's allotted to cover astronomy. But even as amazing a teacher as my wife is, that time is simply not sufficient anymore Within the subject of astronomy, there's too much that should be taught.
It has been my experience that ignorance of astronomy is at near epidemic proportions. It is my very firm conviction that EVERY student in this country (and planet, really) should be taught and experience astronomy during their school years. It needs to start earlier, around the 3rd or 4th grade, and be taught not just for one single quarter — but over the course of several years, integrated with Physics, Chemistry, Math, and History.
Carl Sagan once said that learning about astronomy is a humbling and character building experience; I can attest to that fact. Astronomy is a subject that inspires you to branch out to other scientific disciplines: geology, chemistry, biology, physics, engineering, math, etc. Neil deGrasse Tyson frequently talks about how NASAs Moon missions inspired a generation to dream about tomorrow — it certainly did for me. We need a return to this type of thinking, to inspire students and young adults to become engineers and scientists.
