This paper examines the praxeology of informal educational practices (i.e. how participants produce setting-specific practices to make a tour happen) in the Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory of the University of Coimbra through close analysis of a video-recorded excerpt of a guided tour. Guided visits in informal science settings are…

Motivational hands-on workshops for grade-school level future scientists are needed to inspire young and receptive minds. Described here is an educational event, titled "Inspiring Future Rocket Chemists", with hands-on laboratory exercises demonstrating the fundamentals of rocket flight and live chemistry demonstrations illustrating the…

The epistemic components of science are included in instruction through the three-dimensional learning of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Students use the Science & Engineering Practices to engage the Disciplinary Core Ideas through the perspective of the Crosscutting Concepts. The NGSS focus on the epistemic aspects that all…

The 2019 "Minnesota Academic Standards in Science (Standards)" set the expectations for achievement in science for grades K-12 students in Minnesota. The standards are grounded in the belief that all students can and should be scientifically literate. Graduates should be prepared for career and college opportunities. The…

The 2019 "Minnesota Academic Standards in Science" (Standards) set the expectations for achievement in science for grades K-12 students in Minnesota. The standards are grounded in the belief that all students can and should be scientifically literate. The "Standards" describe a connected body of science and engineering…

The SunSpaceArt (SSA) project, led by the author, a solar scientist at the University of Cambridge, comprises a diverse team of scientists and visual artists who run STEAM (STEM + Arts) workshops in schools, space camps and at other venues (museums, science centres and so on). The project focuses mainly on 7- to 12-year-olds, which is a key age…

What to say to the public about asteroid hazards and how to say it to them? In this article, we relate how our small professional research institution (Klet Observatory, Czech Republic), devoted specifically to Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), together with the educational branch (Ceske Budejovice Observatory and Planetarium, Czech Republic), has…

Children can see the Moon with the naked eye and often are curious about the Moon and other objects in the sky, like the Sun and the stars. However, there is sometimes disagreement in early childhood about whether studying space is appropriate for young children. This activities described in this article engaged children who had different learning…

This paper highlights the design process and implementation for an "all majors" undergraduate course that allows students a chance to reconnect with the natural world. During this course students explore a wide range of biological and physical science based topics that seek to highlight human intervention and our impacts on the planet.…

Space science education is an area of emerging importance in the 21st Century. Missions sponsored by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and programs facilitated through the NASA Space Science Education Consortium (NSSEC) offer unique opportunities to foster learner interest in space science as well as the broader field…

Physics is not a very popular subject at German schools, and several studies indicate that girls are less interested than boys in the traditional physics curriculum. To address this problem, physics education should be up to date, context oriented, interesting for girls and boys, and emerge from their everyday life. The ROSE study shows that…

Many people with strong religious beliefs in the United States struggle with trusting the pronouncements of scientists. This is primarily because they have come to believe that science offers a perspective on ultimate questions such as origins and life after death that conflicts with their own. Education and public outreach efforts by scientists…

Field trip activities are often considered additional activities and are considered recreational activities rather than ones that teach science effectively to students. Field trip activities are one form of effective experience-based learning to train pre-service teachers in the outdoor environment. This study attempted to describe the design of…

A conceptual framework for empirical research on the impact of NASA Space Science Education Consortium (NSSEC) activities is presented in this paper, along with a cross-referencing system between the NSF-based NSSEC evaluation framework and historical definitions of comparable psychometric constructs in the literature. A selected set of findings…

Gender imbalance in the physical sciences and engineering is a longstanding and well-documented concern within science education, industry, and policy. The current study is motivated by this issue and focuses on space science in particular, which has been promoted as a physical science with the capacity to inspire both boys and girls. A survey of…