The Link of Education and Popularization of Astronomy with the Choice of a Future Focus of Study

WDS'15 Proceedings of Contributed Papers Physics, 132 137, 2015. ISBN 978-80-7378-311-2 MATFYZPRESS The Link of Education and Popularization of Astronomy with the Choice of a Future Focus of Study R. Kříček Charles University Prague, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Prague, Czech Republic. Abstract. We investigate the link of education and popularization of astronomy among pupils and high school students with their choice of o focus of study at universities. In our opinion, it is often supposed that astronomy activities can encourage young people to study science but the process was not systematically studied so far, at least in Czech conditions. In this paper we present literature related to this topic, an overview of current popularization of astronomy in the Czech Republic, our basic typology of popularization activities and methodology of our future research. The research will probably consist of both qualitative and quantitative part. We have already started the qualitative research making nine interviews with relevant subjects. These interviews also help us to create the typology of activities. Introduction The Czech Republic, with dense net of observatories, astronomical societies, clubs and other possibilities, has great potential to motivate students to deal with science or even choose a scientific career. Several papers were written about astronomy education in this country but they focus often on ways how to teach astronomy, not on the motivation role. As far as we know, astronomy popularization was not investigated in professional literature. However, popularization can possibly have much greater influence in creating motivation and also knowledge. The reason is that it is not restricted into few lessons, contains various methods of work, allows meeting new people, increasing skills and creativity. We will present papers concerning astronomy education and our research of astronomy popularization in next sections. Our main goal is to understand the process of creating science and especially science career interest using astronomy. Because it is a new problem for us, we decided to start with qualitative research and use methods of grounded theory. These are methods used in social sciences to map a whole unknown process. Based on observations of as much as possible details, we can categorize them and try to find some similarities and rules. To verify hypotheses and generalize the results for broader community, quantitative research can be used. We will probably create questionnaires in upcoming years of our research. Semantic differential could be suitable for a research of attitudes. Astronomy education was described in several papers so we decided to start with astronomy popularization. Papers about astronomy education and our overview of popularization can be found in following sections. To make the overview, we used several sources described below. Among these sources were nine interviews we have done with various people, often different in some important features. Using different sources we can increase validity, such method is called triangulation. Based on the overview we create a typology of popularization activities. The creation process also resembles grounded theory methods. We try to identify all important criteria to sort the activities into some groups. Again, we use the interviews. It seems that subjects of interviews often stress some factors which can be important for them. Also the typology will probably influence future selection of subjects and questions for them. So the subjects of interviews influence our typology and vice versa. Such scenario is also typical for grounded theory. In the future typology of subjects and their life-stories can be made. We hope that detailed description and typology can help us to better understand the mentioned process of creating science career interest using astronomy. Hopefully, following questions could be answered. Does astronomy popularization motivate students much to study science? What are the most effective ways to create such motivation? What can we improve in the future? Can we make some recommendations? 132

Czech astronomy education In compulsory education, astronomy was usually contained in other subjects, except for a short period in 1950 s. This sixty-year-old disastrous experiment ended after six years in 1959, describes Grygar [2013]. It was started without needed preparations by ruling Communist Party. According to Široký [1968], the project struggled to cope especially with insufficient education of teachers in astronomy and inappropriate teaching materials. Even during this period, the main source of modern astronomy knowledge was outside the school, in astronomy clubs, lessons or in radio [Grygar, 2013]. In the same time when this attempt took place, many new observatories and planetariums were build so after its end it was possible to visit these facilities instead of school lessons and astronomy popularization developed as well. Pudivítr [2004] explained the role of astronomy in Czech education system and the appearance of curriculum in 2004. There was specified how much time is astronomy taught and an extension suggested. Pudivítr explains with several examples that astronomy could be taught in various subjects from physics to art. In recent years, a reform of Czech education system was introduced. There is a precise list of topics to teach. Now so called key competences are stressed, each with a brief list of topics which can be included [RVP G, 2007, RVP ZV, 2013]. The fact that astronomy is not included in these themes for grammar schools was criticized by Štefl [2013]. Because number of physics lessons at grammar schools is decreasing, he proposes to include astronomy into mathematics and brings several specific examples of its implementing. Astronomy is included in a limited amount, considered to improve key competences in secondary education [RVP ZV, 2013]. It is questionable, how much can astronomy education motivate to study science. However, some papers claim that astronomy can be one of the most interesting parts of physics [Sjoberg, 2000; Williams et. al., 2003]. This is the reason why it is worthy to investigate its role in Czech environment and possibly make recommendations for teachers and other educators how to use its potential. Czech astronomy popularization overview and typology Exploration of astronomy popularization is necessary for further research of influence of astronomy on science career interest. Although formal education is obligatory minimum education for Czech pupils, it does not include much information about the Universe. Nevertheless, free time activities containing astronomy are quite common, especially in some areas. Is their influence more significant, maybe measurable? First of all, we must map the current situation. For this reason we created an overview of popularization activities. We used two main types of information sources. The first source is personal experience. The author himself participated in the process of astronomy popularization especially during his high school studies, and later continued as organizer. For example, he was a member of a section of Czech Astronomical Society working with youth, organizer of astronomical summer camp or Czech Astronomy Olympiad. So far, three visits in different summer camps were done especially for the purposes of this research. Even during creation of overview, some information was obtained by simple communication with other people. If this was used, the author tried to verify it from other source. For example, existence of the Planet Hunters project was discovered in this way. Some ideas appeared also during the interviews. It brought some new information, with rather additional character. It helped to gain better insight into given problematic from people who were included, for example about activities of Prague Observatory or the Open Science project of the Czech Academy of Sciences. Second type of sources was electronic sources. The majority of electronic sources were websites of observatories, astronomical clubs or societies and others. Some of them are present on social networks, too, but so far we did not investigate it systematically. We present some ongoing popularization activities in the following part describing our attempt to create activities typology. We gradually sorted the activities according to some of the most obvious criteria such as age, geography, frequency. Other criteria appeared during interviews. To identify them, we used some methods similar to methods of grounded theory. We coded every statement or section of speech, it means we used some more general expression to describe it. Some categories 133

appeared often in the majority of interviews, mainly methods and social context of various activities. As for our subjects, we chose people studying astronomy, working in astronomy, or people who took part in astronomy popularization in some period of their life. We managed to speak with two scientists (one astronomer and one from different field), one programmer and several university students (of astronomy, physics, architecture, medicine). Both men and women were included. Now we will present the discovered criteria, starting with age. According to that, we can distinguish 11 categories for children from nursery to high schools, adults, families with children, even seniors and some activities for people of all ages. Activities for pupils of different ages are often prepared by observatories and planetariums. These are for example programs or movies to enrich physics education, but also astronomical clubs or summer camps. There are special programs for nursery schools on several observatories (Třebíč, Vsetín, Vyškov), astronomy can be included into a fairytale movie (Rokycany). For higher degrees of education the offer of activities is wider. It includes programs for schools, clubs and summer camps as well. Moreover, there are roadshows or Little Messier Marathon one-night analogue to classical Messier Marathon in which children try to observe large amount of objects from the Messier Catalogue. These are designated to primary school. Older pupils can solve astronomy competitions during their secondary education. Over ten years, Astronomy Olympiad is organized in these categories, in recent years expanded by presence of finalists in International Astronomy Olympiad. Since 2014/15 school year, Astronomical Postal Seminar, an offset of Slovak competition, takes place. In the past, there were two more competitions called Window into Space and Astronomical Postal Competition for Youth. Also an amount of summer camps focus on children of this age. For example, summer camp by Úpice Observatory which propagates mainly physics and experiments or summer camp in Ricky organized by the Section for Children and Youth of the Czech Astronomical Society. At high schools, the most talented students can begin their own astronomical research under leadership of specialists in the Open Science or the High School Professional Activity projects organized by the Czech Academy of Sciences and Czech Ministry of Education, respectively. Activities addressed mostly to adults are often used by interested teenagers, too. This is the case of own or online research (the Planet Hunters project), societies membership or attendance in specialized seminars (e.g., focusing on telescopes building, observing of transitions and so on). Whole families can enjoy the Holiday with Telescope organized by Rokycany Observatory, seniors the Space for Seniors in Ostrava. One special group are teachers, for whom few seminars are held. According to frequency, disposable activities are usual for random visitors of observatories or special events (e.g., astronomy contribution into European Researchers Night). Some activities repeat each week (clubs, courses, societies meetings), each month (public lessons), few times a year (TV series Depths of the Universe, journals for amateur astronomers such as Astropis or Slovak Kozmos), once a year (summer camps, seminars, competitions) or irregularly (visits of some observatories, especially those run by volunteers). Some activities can be attended in any time (online activities, visits of Dark Sky Parks). Other simple criterion is geography. We can distinguish international activities such as competitions announced by European Southern Observatory or European Space Agency, online research projects like Planet Hunters, SETI@home or other distributed computing projects, then national activities (summer camps, Astronomy Olympiad) and local activities. The local activities are restricted only to small area close to some observatory, society, club etc. For illustration, we present our map of Czech observatories working with public, planetariums, astronomical societies, summer camps and dark-sky parks (Figure 1). Its online version can be found in web pages of the Czech Astronomical Society and used by general public. The My Maps application of Google Company was used to create it. Activities can be divided according to the field of interest. There are some, which goal is almost only to popularize astronomy (movies, journals, competitions), but some of them specialize significantly on physics, too (e.g.. radioclub in Karlovy Vary). Some stress informatics or even programming (astronomy and programming courses of Talnet organization). Also other, more distant fields are popularized, there are observatories with geoparc (Valašské Meziříčí), dinopark (Vyškov), websites with study materials containing astronomy and meteorology 134

Figure 1. The map of Czech astronomy popularization. As for initial skills, we recognized activities for laics, for example some courses, clubs and summer camps, interactive expositions at observatories, Dark Sky Parks with its popularization of both astronomy and light pollution. Some advanced activities like summer expeditions or presence astronomy courses require long-lasting interest in astronomy and relevant skills. Another criterion related to initial skills is the main goal. The mentioned activities usually attempt only to make astronomy and science more popular among general public. There are more sophisticated activities to enhance science career interest itself. These are the activities allowing to make own research or Talnet online courses. They require the most evolved initial skills. Last group according to the goal are activities with specific practical purpose, such as to discover some phenomenon. One example is online research projects. Among used methods, observation is certainly important. Observations are made at observatories, clubs and camps, but also during special events, for example in Dark Sky Parks. This method was appreciated by some of our interview subjects. People can meet also other technics, e.g., for computing, radio observations, sky quality measurements. There is other type of activities focusing mainly on theory. Also this type was preferred by someone, but by someone rejected. For example astronomy competitions belong here, also online courses or some societies. Important part of summer camps or clubs is sport and physical activities. Creative activities and art are part of some local or international competitions, clubs and camps or one-day events. Moreover, research activities are present, some of them with own scientific work or even thesis defence. The second criterion often mentioned by subjects in interviews was the social context. The influence of surroundings on the subjects was various. According to activities, we can obviously divide them roughly into individual and collective. Individual activities can be online research projects and courses, postal competitions, reading of journals and others. Any detailed discussion of large offer of astronomical toys, observational devices or literature is beyond the possibilities of this article and even our research project. Let us mention that such aspects appeared during several interviews and we must keep in mind that not only activities provided directly by someone else are important for children. Among collective activities is large variety containing camps, expeditions, excursions, competitions, clubs and other. The collective activities can be sorted into activities supporting cooperation or competition. Competitions are obvious, cooperation is included in summer camps, expeditions and similar activities. 135

More detailed typology is being described and will be published in the proceedings of GIREP/EPEC Conference 2015. We also used more criteria there. Methods and social context (criteria based on interviews) will be complemented with specific examples of subjects statements. Future research The creation of popularization activities typology is important to have some context into which we can constitute the investigated process of creating science career interest. In fact, the typology may be never fully finished, because new relevant criteria can appear. At least we sorted the activities according to criteria already known. During previous interviews it seemed that there could be also some typical groups of subjects we can find. Despite this presumption is based only on few information, we will pay attention to it and possibly create a typology of life-stories. Then some rules can appear regarding what activities are appropriate for different types of people. Also more detailed coding of interviews and other advanced techniques of grounded theory will be used to map ongoing processes. In this way we will try to formulate a hypotheses explaining creation of science and science career interest, if there is some. The hypotheses can be consequently verified using quantitative research. We will possibly make repeated measurements of attitudes of some children involved in popularization activities. The measurements could be done before and after an event important for further ontogenesis or be separated by an appropriate period of time. This period should not be too short or too long. In the case of too short period considered influence of activities could be unrecognisable. In the other case some other effects such as history or mortality of sample can be dominant. To measure attitudes, it is possible to get some inspiration from research done abroad. There are several papers about motivation towards science and science career [Sjoberg, 2000; Gorard and See, 2011; Maestri, 2013; Basl, 2011; Potvin and Hasni, 2014; Wulf et. al., 2010] and even some already developed questionnaires to measure it [Chang et. al., 2009; Oh et. al., 2013; Romine et. al., 2014]. Unfortunately, these questionnaires would have to be translated into Czech language. Translation could cause problems because it is not possible to make Czech-written questionnaire in exactly the same meaning. Then piloting would have to be made with the new translation. We can also create new questionnaires and pilot them, too. In the future, we will decide what the best solution is. It seems that creating a simple questionnaire for new students of a faculty of physics could be appropriate to investigate students astronomy experience and consequent evolution, maybe including semantic differential to explore their attitudes. Conclusion We started with a research focused on the role of astronomy education and popularization in creating science career interest. We focus on Czech conditions mainly. Positive role of astronomy here was not yet proved. Astronomy education was described in several papers so our first steps were to create an overview of astronomy popularization. For that, we used especially electronic sources and personal experience. We started to make a typology of popularization activities using this overview and nine interviews with relevant subjects. Around 10 criteria appeared. The typology is not finished and will be improved. Later, we will probably make a typology of life-stories, based on more interviews. We will use grounded theory techniques to reconstruct typical processes of creating science career interest using astronomy. We will try to verify the emerging hypotheses using quantitative research. For example, repeated measurements and constructing semantic differential could allow us to investigate changes in children s attitudes. Acknowledgments. Firstly, the author thanks to his supervisor, consultant and other colleagues for precious advice and comments and the faculty for support. Secondly, but not at last, to all the people showing the beauty of astronomy to others. 136

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