Curriculum Projects and their Effects on Astronomy Education

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Session 61 -- Education/Curriculum
Oral presentation, Thursday, January 13, 10:15-11:45, Salons A/B Room (Crystal City Marriott)

[61.01] Curriculum Projects and their Effects on Astronomy Education

Jay M. Pasachoff (CfA and Williams College--Hopkins Obs.)

widespread effect on the teaching of astronomy in schools and thus on the supply of astronomers and on knowledge of astronomy among the general public. For example, the omission of astronomy as a requirement in 1893 by the Committee of Ten (J.L. Bishop in Pasachoff and Percy, The Teaching of Astronomy, Proc. IAU Colloq 105) and the fact that an astronomer was not included on the committee has had major and long-lasting consequences to the detriment of astronomy. Thus it is important for us to become familiar with a set of curriculum projects that are now being intensively worked on. They include the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences Project 2061: Science for All Americans, the National Science Teachers Association's Scope, Sequence, and Coordination of Secondary-School Science Education, and the National Committee on Science Education Standards and Assessment's National Science Education Standards, the last under the aegis of the National Research Council. We will discuss these projects and their impacts on astronomy with principal participants James Rutherford for the AAS, Russell Aiuto for the NSTA, and Ken Hoffmann for the NRC/NCSESA.

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