New implementations have been recently made on the Space Awareness website to ease teachers’ experience in the search for material, access it in different languages and enrich their lessons with new pedagogical techniques, various tools and resources.
Role models play essential role in attracting and motivating students starting from the very young age to pursue STEM careers and space-related careers in particular. In the Space Awareness Career Hub, career articles about space-related jobs and role models of space science professionals are published on a regular basis. Career Hub contains a collection of interviews with professionals in the field of space and astronomy, articles with insights to space-related career profiles and recordings of webinars. The material was developed to provide understanding of the enormous variety of opportunities and career potential in space sciences. Moreover, now the Career Hub has a brand new Teaching Material section where teachers can find career activities for students, download and print material on space careers and tailor the material to their students’ needs. The Hub will continue presenting the opportunities in space exploration and the career potential it offers in future, while more profiles and career related resources will be added in the near future.
New didactic courses which are complete space-related, inquiry-based activities designed for teachers are now available here. These didactic courses are based on popular space education topics: navigation tools and terms, history of navigation, the Earth’s atmosphere, terraforming, climate change, Solar system or Universe basics. They follow the Space Awareness inquiry template and include numerous tips and resources. The courses vary in terms of length, themes and classroom settings so as to cover a wide range of teachers’ needs. Six didactic courses for primary level and six for secondary level were developed in collaboration with experienced teachers. This collaboration ensured that the courses meet the needs of the teachers, have an added value for them and that the structure, terms and language used is adapted to teachers. You can download the activity description as well as support documents in the Develop section of the Space Awareness website.
A key aspect to supporting your students’ effective development is to understand their current knowledge and confidence in the topic being taught. Assessment tools provide a way to gather feedback from students, both formally and informally. By using creative forms of assessment tools (rather than standard tests or quizzes) you can gather a more holistic picture of students’ development, as well as maintain your students’ enjoyment in the topic. In the Develop section a suggestion for possible assessment tools for teachers to use in their classrooms are provided. There are two categories - Formative and Summative assessment tools. Formative assessment tools explore students’ learning development during the learning process; it is a form of feedback, reflection and quality assurance. Summative assessment tools, on the other hand, measure a student’s achievement at the end of a unit or course. It provides evidence of what students learned, whether curriculum outcomes have been met and the degree to which they were attained.
The Search tool was recently implemented in order to ease users’ experience and allow them to quickly find needed educational material. To access the tool, you need to find the magnifying glass icon in the top left corner of the website and click on it. After providing a word or a phrase you would like to search for in the search field, you will be redirected to the search results related to your request. You can also search for resources in your own language.
The website is on its way to be translated in Bulgarian. Users already can find Bulgarian language in the list of languages by clicking on the language icon on the top right corner of the website. In addition to this, a number of resources for both primary and secondary school are available in Bulgarian thanks to the Space Awareness Bulgarian nodes Ivo Jokin and Dr. Vladimir Bozhilov who act as volunteer translators.
Visit different sections of the website and find material you can use in the classroom!
You can stay up-to-date with the Space Awareness news by subscribing to the project’s newsletter here and by following us in social media on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Image credit: Macrovector/Shutterstock.com
