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Session 23 - Astronomy Education: Current Developments & Trends.
Oral session, Monday, January 13
Harbour A,
The publication in 1983 of "A Nation at Risk" focused attention on the problems of science and mathematics education within the United States. Concerns about astronomy have arisen as part of the general uproar, but astronomy is not yet a major consideration for most educators. In 1994-5 there were 84,715 public schools with a total of 44.1 million students in the US. Their curriculum is most often set through local rules by each of 14,400 districts. (An additional 4.8 million students attended 26,000 private schools.) The emergence of national standards (most notably through Project 2061's Benchmarks and the National Science Education Standards) holds out the promise of astronomy for all students. This paper will examine the role of astronomy within the national standards and how several national astronomy education projects are committed to providing more access to astronomy within the school setting.
General public inquiries concerning this paper may be sent to: marykay@astro.as.utexas.edu
