Dangerous Questions in Astronomy Education
Abstract
As astronomy enters an era defined by global telescope networks, petabyte-scale surveys, and powerful computational tools, the longstanding goals of astronomy education, particularly introductory ``ASTRO101'', but equally encompassing both higher and lower level courses, warrant fresh examination. In June 2024, the AstroEdUNC meeting at UNC--Chapel Hill convened 100 astronomers, education researchers, and practitioners to synthesise community perspectives on the purpose, content, and delivery of astronomy education. Beginning with historical vignettes, the meeting's deliberations were organised into six interrelated themes: (1) Context, highlighting astronomy's evolution from classical charting to multi-messenger discovery and its role as a connective thread across STEM and the humanities; (2) Content, exploring how curricula can balance essential concepts with authentic investigations and leverage open-source and AI-augmented resources; (3) Skills, arguing that astronomy should foreground scientific literacy, computational fluency, and communication through genuine data-driven inquiry; (4) Engagement, advocating for active-learning strategies, formative assessment, and culturally inclusive narratives; (5) Beyond the Classroom, emphasising scaffolding, universal-design practices, and K--12/community partnerships; and (6) Astronomy Education Research, outlining priority areas for assessing knowledge, attitudes, and long-term outcomes. We provide concrete recommendations for future astronomy education research development, underscoring the need for approaches to education that are authentic while meeting the learning and life goal needs of the students, a vibrant community of practice and robust researcher-practitioner partnerships to ensure that introductory astronomy is pertinent, applicable and inspiring to a broad student population.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2507.02162,
title = {Dangerous Questions in Astronomy Education},
author = {Michael Fitzgerald and Rachel Freed and Dan Reichart and Kate Meredith and Kalee Tock and Daryl Janzen and Saeed Salimpour and Jennifer Lynn Bartlett and Matthew Beaky and Art Borja and Ken Brandt and Jim Buchholz and Patricia Craig and Anthony Crider and Richard Datwyler and Marta Dark-McNeese and Anna DeJong and Donovan Domingue and Debbie French and Oliver Fraser and Amy L. Glazier and Enrique Gomez and Erika Grundstrom and Nicole Gugliucci and Kevin Healy and Ardis Herrold and Ian Hewitt and Jack Howard and Katherine Hunt and Yashashree Jadhav and Jonathan Keohane and Noah Kearns and Lancelot Kao and Brian Kloppenborg and Kelly Kosmo O'Neil and Kevin Lee and Ulrike Lahaise and Sandy Liss and David McKinnon and Adam McKay and Stephen McNeil and Mariel Meier and Jackie Milingo and Qurat-ul-Ann Mirza and Abbas Mokhtarzadeh and Raul Morales-Juberias and Sean Moroney and Rhone O'Hara and Angela Osterman Meyer and Imad Pasha and Bradley W. Peterson and Luisa Rebull and Digesh Raut and Christine Russell and Ann Schmiedekamp and Carl Schmiedekamp and Madeline Shepley and Deanna Shields and Brooke Skelton and Don Smith and David Sukow and John B. Taylor and Elise Weaver and Michelle Wooten and Tiffany Stone Wolbrecht and David Yenerall},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.02162},
year = {2025}
}