Robotic telescopes and student research in the school curriculum around the OECD countries

The aim of this paper is to explore the presence and possible incorporation of inquiry-based learning approaches using Robotic Telescopes and Student Research in the regular science curriculum. This study uses preliminary findings from an extensive ongoing study, which is currently reviewing the extent of astronomy content in the school curriculum of the 35 member countries from the OECD in addition to two emerging nations in modern astronomy – China and South Africa, which are not part of the OECD. Analysis of curriculum documents from 28 OECD countries, including China and South Africa, reveals that although there is a prevalence of astronomy related content in most grades, incorporating Robotic Telescopes and Student Research into the regular science curriculum is limited by two interdependent factors. Firstly, the majority of curricula introduce astronomy-related concepts through a descriptive lens, with a focus on the “what?”, rather than the “how?” or “why?”. Secondly, astronomy in comparison to other topics gets very little time allocation. Robotic Telescopes provide teachers with enormous potential to teach students not only topics related to science, but also to afford students the opportunity to engage in “authentic science”. Thus, it is vital for the members of the astronomy community to play a greater role in the development of curricula

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics' resources: focus on curated databases

The SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics (www.isb-sib.ch) provides world-class bioinformatics databases, software tools, services and training to the international life science community in academia and industry. These solutions allow life scientists to turn the exponentially growing amount of data into knowledge. Here, we provide an overview of SIB's resources and competence areas, with a strong focus on curated databases and SIB's most popular and widely used resources. In particular, SIB's Bioinformatics resource portal ExPASy features over 150 resources, including UniProtKB/Swiss-Prot, ENZYME, PROSITE, neXtProt, STRING, UniCarbKB, SugarBindDB, SwissRegulon, EPD, arrayMap, Bgee, SWISS-MODEL Repository, OMA, OrthoDB and other databases, which are briefly described in this article

Robotic Telescopes and Student Research in the School Curriculum around the OECD countries

The aim of this paper is to explore the presence and possible incorporation of inquiry-based learning approaches using Robotic Telescopes and Student Research in the regular science curriculum. This study uses preliminary findings from an extensive ongoing study, which is currently reviewing the extent of astronomy content in the school curriculum of the 35 member countries from the OECD in addition to two emerging nations in modern astronomy – China and South Africa, which are not part of the OECD. Analysis of curriculum documents from 28 OECD countries, including China and South Africa, reveals that although there is a prevalence of astronomy related content in most grades, incorporating Robotic Telescopes and Student Research into the regular science curriculum is limited by two interdependent factors. Firstly, the majority of curricula introduce astronomy-related concepts through a descriptive lens, with a focus on the “what?”, rather than the “how?” or “why?”. Secondly, astronomy in comparison to other topics gets very little time allocation. Robotic Telescopes provide teachers with enormous potential to teach students not only topics related to science, but also to afford students the opportunity to engage in “authentic science”. Thus, it is vital for the members of the astronomy community to play a greater role in the development of curricula

The gateway science: a review of astronomy in the OECD school curricula, including China and South Africa

Astronomy is considered by many to be a gateway science owing to its ability to inspire curiosity in everyone irrespective of age, culture, or general inclination towards science. Currently, where there is a global push to get more students engaged in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, astronomy provides an invaluable conduit to achieve this shift. This paper highlights the results of a study which has reviewed the presence and extent to which astronomy has been incorporated into the school curriculum of the Organisation for Economic and Cooperative Development (OECD) member countries. In addition, two others strong in astronomy research, China and South Africa, are included together with the International Baccalaureate Diploma science curriculum. A total of 52 curricula from 37 countries were reviewed. The results reveal that astronomy and its related topics are prevalent in at least one grade in all curricula. Of the 52 curricula, 44 of them had astronomy-related topics in grade 6, 40 introduced astronomy-related topics in grade 1, whilst 14 had astronomy-related topics explicitly mentioned in all grades. At all year levels, celestial motion is the dominant content area; however, topics such as stars, physics, cosmology, and planetary science become much more frequent as a proportion towards the higher year levels. The most common keywords employed in the curricula related to basic astronomy concepts were the Earth, Sun, Moon, and stars, all with a high frequency of use. There is hardly any focus on Indigenous Astronomy or the role of prominent women astronomers. Relational textual analysis using Leximancer revealed that all the major concepts could be encompassed within two broad themes: Earth and Physics. Astronomy and Physics are often seen as different domains, with astronomy content being more facts based, than based on concepts

The Gateway Science: a Review of Astronomy in the OECD School Curricula, Including China and South Africa

Astronomy is considered by many to be a gateway science owing to its ability to inspire curiosity in everyone irrespective of age, culture or general inclination to science. While the inclusion of astronomy in the school curriculum has waxed and waned over the years, in the current era, where there is a global push to get more students engaged in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), astronomy provides an invaluable conduit to bring about this shift. This paper highlights the results of a study which has reviewed the presence and extent to which astronomy has been incorporated into the school curriculum of the Organisation for Economic and Cooperative Development (OECD) member countries as well as two non-OECD countries strong in astronomy research, China and South Africa, and one international curriculum, the International Baccalaureate Diploma programme. A total of 52 national curricula from 37 countries were reviewed. The results revealed that overall astronomy and its related topics are prevalent in at least one grade in all curricula across the OECD, China and South Africa. Of the 52 national curricula, 44 of them had astronomy related topics in grade 6. Out of the 52 national curricula, 40 introduced astronomy-related topics in grade 1, while 14 of them had astronomy-related topics explicitly mentioned in all grades. The most common keywords were related to basic astronomy concepts, such as the Earth, the Sun, the Moon, and the stars, all have occurrences of over 100. Relational textual analysis also revealed that all the major concepts could be encompassed across two broad themes of Earth and Physics

The gateway science: A review of astronomy in the OECD school curricula, including China and South Africa

Astronomy is considered by many to be a gateway science owing to its ability to inspire curiosity in everyone irrespective of age, culture, or general inclination towards science. Currently, where there is a global push to get more students engaged in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, astronomy provides an invaluable conduit to achieve this shift. This paper highlights the results of a study which has reviewed the presence and extent to which astronomy has been incorporated into the school curriculum of the Organisation for Economic and Cooperative Development (OECD) member countries. In addition, two others strong in astronomy research, China and South Africa, are included together with the International Baccalaureate Diploma science curriculum. A total of 52 curricula from 37 countries were reviewed. The results reveal that astronomy and its related topics are prevalent in at least one grade in all curricula. Of the 52 curricula, 44 of them had astronomy-related topics in grade 6, 40 introduced astronomy-related topics in grade 1, whilst 14 had astronomy-related topics explicitly mentioned in all grades. At all year levels, celestial motion is the dominant content area; however, topics such as stars, physics, cosmology, and planetary science become much more frequent as a proportion towards the higher year levels. The most common keywords employed in the curricula related to basic astronomy concepts were the Earth, Sun, Moon, and stars, all with a high frequency of use. There is hardly any focus on Indigenous Astronomy or the role of prominent women astronomers. Relational textual analysis using Leximancer revealed that all the major concepts could be encompassed within two broad themes: Earth and Physics. Astronomy and Physics are often seen as different domains, with astronomy content being more facts based, than based on concepts..