Many elementary school students find astronomical knowledge difficult to attain. Students cannot observe planetary motion in the universe, which makes the construction of astronomical knowledge abstract and incomprehensible for many students. To cope with this dilemma, this study proposed creative situated learning via augmented reality (AR) and…

Race for the Red Planet was designed by Daphne Fauber to teach engineering design principles through the contextualization of popular culture, science fiction, and the current race for Mars. The goal of the lesson was for students to learn how people may be living on Mars in the future through a variety of interdisciplinary sources and various…

We study the variation of the apparent weight of an object with height above the surface of a planet with a (buoyant) atmosphere. Interestingly, this variation depends on two competing factors--the reduced gravitational acceleration (which acts to reduce the weight with increasing height) and the reduced buoyancy force in the progressively less…

This paper has a didactic aim. Indeed, starting from the well-known principle of free fall discovered by Galileo Galilei, we want to make some reflections that we consider useful for secondary school students. Being the acceleration invariant with respect to Galilei's transformations, it is useful to underline that the free fall in a gravitational…

This document presents the changes belonging to the published article. The study aimed to examine the opinions of the instructors who work at GUHEM (Gökmen Space and Aviation Training Center) on the exhibition's content, how the exhibition spaces contribute to science education, especially astronomy and aviation, and the types of visitors who…

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration--European Space Agency collaborative mission to test the feasibility of defending Earth from a catastrophic asteroid impact by using a spacecraft to deflect the asteroid away from the planet. Launched on Nov. 23, 2021, the DART spacecraft will intercept…

Data from the Kepler satellite were analysed using the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes database. With the participation of 53 students, we determined the parameters of the HAT-P-7b (Kepler-2) exoplanet system (transit duration, planet-to-star radius ratio, orbital period, semi-major axis and star mass). We used approaches that are easy to…

The planet Mercury transited the face of the Sun in a rare spectacle on 11 November 2019. It was an awe-inspiring moment for 300 students from Kwabenya Community High School and Ghana Atomic Energy Commission Basic School in Ghana to see this wonder of the cosmos. Celestron Power Seeker 60 mm diameter telescopes were used to project the Sun's…

Augmented reality has the potential to give students a unique experience, including when teaching science subjects. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of an augmented reality-based intervention in teaching "Solar Systems and Planets" to four students with learning disabilities. The dependent variable was the…

This study aimed to examine the opinions of the instructors who work at GUHEM (Gökmen Space and Aviation Training Center) on the exhibition's content, how the exhibition spaces contribute to science education, especially astronomy and aviation, and the types of visitors who frequently visit the center. Nine instructors from GUHEM's science centers…

In high school, and also in introductory physics courses in higher levels of schooling, the law of universal gravitation of planets is introduced by postulating Johannes Kepler's three laws, and later Isaac Newton's law of the inverse of the square of the distance to the Sun. The justification of the laws is only achieved in advanced courses in…

This article provides a snapshot of assessment for learning in action. It introduces the drawings made by children who had been studying "Planet Earth and Beyond"--Matariki as a context in science in a New Zealand primary school. The visual data are drawn from the Te Ao Hurihuri project (The Changing World) in which students were offered…

Astronomy is one of the few sciences where the data (star-light) can be seen by all. Yet, there is a disconnect between a typical undergraduate lecture and, for example, where a planet may be in the sky and how to observe it. With the advent of moderate cost, high-quality 'back-garden' astronomy, and standard computers powerful enough to produce…

Planetariums have been used for a long time in astronomy education. Due to some disadvantages of permanent planetariums, it is seen that portable planetariums have become popular in recent years. Portable planetariums, due to their easy set up in anywhere, offer opportunities for those students studying in the regions where there are not…

We present and analyze video data of upper secondary school students' engagement with a computer-supported collaborative learning environment that enables them to explore astronomical phenomena (Keplerian motion). The students' activities have an immersive and exploratory character, as students engage in open-ended inquiry and interact physically…