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Presenter: Dr. Linda Strubbe
Affiliations: https://sites.google.com/site/lestrubbe
Abstract
Astronomy evokes deep curiosity for many people, making it a beautiful topic for supporting students to learn scientific practices and develop as scientists. Inquiry is a powerful approach for teaching astronomical content and practices together: students ask their own questions about a phenomenon, investigate their question in a small group, and then synthesize and share their results. My colleagues and I have designed and taught an inquiry-based lab sequence about distances in the Universe at two venues: The Pan-African School for Emerging Astronomers (PASEA), and a first-year astronomy course at the University of British Columbia (UBC). PASEA is a short course in astronomy for university students and teachers from across Africa, designed and taught by a collaboration of astronomers from Africa, North America and Australia. I’ll share our inquiry curriculum in both places, how we teach new instructors to facilitate inquiry, and evidence that students learn astronomical concepts and build their self-efficacy. (This work was published in the journal CourseSource in 2023.) We encourage other astronomy instructors to try an inquiry approach to help students develop as scientists, while exploring topics they are curious about.
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