ASTRONOMY AND SCIENCE EDUCATION

Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences in the history of mankind, and our ancestors started to look up at the night sky in bewilderment many centuries ago. Stars, constellations and galaxies are subjects that tend to arise our interest, and to take advantage of it, astronomy has been used for a number of years as a vehicle to improve the motivation and quality of learning of science students. This trend has increased since the celebration of the International Year of Astronomy in 2009, and now there are numerous organizations, programs and initiatives that try to improve the learning of science and to promote careers in science by introducing basic topics of astronomy to science students and by involving them in real scientific projects dealing with astronomy. This approach requires the continuous education of science teachers, to empower them to use astronomy activities in their science classes. All these efforts have generated numerous online resources that, based on astronomy topics, are designed to motivate students and improve the learning process of mathematics, physics and other sciences. In this paper, some of the best known initiatives that link astronomy and the improvement of science learning will be described. Also, some of the sources of well tested hands-on activities for the science class will be explained, so that the interested science teacher will be able to use them to increase the engagement of the students and the quality of their learning.