(EER's homepage, Astronomer's Education Notebook)
Roettger's Astronomer's Education Notebook
An online notebook for astronomers and space scientists wanting to become involved in science education.

Index:
Introduction
Index to Notebook (annotated)

Always Under Construction.

Introduction

I'm collecting information for this notebook; I won't pretend to be an expert, although I've dabbled in many of the topics presented here. I welcome comments (preferably constructive), contributions, and notes about other relevant sites or resources.

At the 1995 ASP symposium "Astronomy Education: Current Developments, Future Directions", I said I would collect and place here any advice people had on how to improve the format of a large lecture course. I've posted excerpts and a summary of one article -- I sure would like more.

I'm involved in K-12, public education, and college science for the nonmajor, so this notebook will probably not be balanced. Astronomy for the astronomy major doesn't have much representation, and I haven't collected much for college science yet.

When I first started mucking about in science education, I found that I and others were constantly re-inventing the wheel. I'd like us to have a community memory so we spend less time re-inventing and more time refining and actually doing. That's the main purpose of this document. Here are things I think will help:

Index to the Notebook

Getting started

a brief overview and a couple things you might use to get your feet wet.

Things you can do

astronomers aren't limited to classroom visits. Here are some ideas. I'd like to get information and lessons learned from people who have tried the ones I haven't.

Subscriptions

there are electronic journals and organizations that I find particularly useful. There's also a preliminary list of organizations.

Teaching basics

this isn't my specialty, but I've collected some key ideas for now, until I can get someone better qualified to describe the basics.

Science standards

it's easy to get all the reform efforts and science standards confused. This lists the three key science efforts and is the beginning of a collection of other efforts.

Communities

it turns out that some of the things I was trying to invent already have people doing them - and even professional societies. This will be a working list.

Lessons learned

a cross-listing of the distilled experiences and frustrations related to the above -- a fairly random assortment at the moment.

I would appreciate e-mail with your feedback. Has this been useful?

Go (back) to Elizabeth Roettger's Homepage.

Created 14 March 1995, last revised 23 June 1997

by Elizabeth E. Roettger, roettger@ix.netcom.com
URL: http://www.nthelp.com/eer/AEN_home.html