Khagol Bulletin # 131

The OAE Center is in the process of finalising solar system theme-based Astronomy glossary cards for printing. The OAE Center India team has helped to move the Romanian, Chinese, and Haitian translations of the Big Ideas book into the inDesign formsuitable for printing. The OAE Center India personnel at HBCSE have actively produced a series of internally reviewed by the OAE Center India for accuracy and simplicity. The OAE Center plans to translate the booklet articles into English and later into other languages. The current copy can be accessed here. https://astro4edu.iucaa.in/books.html educational videos in astronomy, each approximately 12 to 15 minutes, to make foundational astronomy concepts more accessible. These videos span topics from the solar system to celestial coordinates and magnitudes, catering to high school and early undergraduate students and educators in English and the local languages, Hindi and Marathi. During this quarter, several episodes were in the post- editing stage, with the YouTube premiere planned for early January 2024. The initiative will be supported by promotional efforts on OAE's social media channels, aiming to broaden the reach and impact of astronomy education through digital mediums. Ob j ect i ve : Promote ast ronomy i n curricula BaselineSurvey The OAE Center India has conducted a baseline survey for the status of astronomy education throughout the country over the last year. Over 2000 students from 34 schools in 10 states participated in the survey. The analysis of the survey shows that although students are highly interested in astronomy, most need to gain adequate knowledge of basic astronomy. The research explored how gender, availability of resources, and geographic variation affect these conclusions in any way. A manuscript based on these results will be sent for peer review. Pedagogic Workshop on Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology A five-day workshop titled “Pedagogic Workshop on Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology” was organised from6th – 10th November 2023 for teachers teaching a s t r o n omy a n d a s t r o p h y s i c s t o undergraduate students in the northern part of India. The workshop was jointly organised by the Astronomy Centre for Educators, Malaviya Mission Teacher Training Centre, IUCAA, Pune and Physics Department, St. Stephen's College, University of Delhi, at St. Stephen's College. Around 30 teachers and 15 resource persons attended theworkshop. The Principal of St. Stephen's College inaugurated the workshop, and Dipankar Bhattacharya, Ashoka University, delivered the inaugural lecture. Themain purposes of the workshop were to (i) explore innovative teaching methodologies and strategies that can improve student learning experiences in the field of astronomy and as t rophys i cs , ( i i ) expand sub j ec t knowledge of key concepts in core areas of astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology, (iii) develop resource materials that teachers can utilise to enhance their instructional practices and engage their students effectively, and (iv) equip Astronomy Centre for Educators Malaviya Mission Teacher Training Centre teachers with practical tools and hands-on activities that they can implement in their classrooms, fostering active learning and critical thinking among students. The topics covered included stars and stellar evolution, multi-messenger astronomy, astronomical experiments, galaxies and active galactic nuclei, x-ray astronomy, pulsars and radio astronomy, dark matter, cosmic distance ladder, and cosmology. There were hands-on sessions every day and presentat i ons by the teacher participants. The resource persons were Dipankar Bhattacharya and Philip Cherian (Ashoka University), T. R. Seshadri and Darshan Beniwal (Delhi University), Aru Beri (IISER Mohali), Chetana Jain (Hansraj College), Suprit Singh (IIT Delhi), Main Pal (Sri Venkateswara College), Deepak Jain (Deen Dayal Upadhyaya College), Geetanjali Sethi, Akshay Rana, Shruti Thakur and Sanil Unnikrishnan (St. Stephen's College) and Prakash Arumugasamy and Dhruba J. Saikia (IUCAA). The coordinators of the workshop were Geetanjali Sethi, St. Stephen's College, University of Delhi, Vaidehi S. Paliya, IUCAA, Pune, and Team ACE, IUCAA. | 21 | KHAG L | No. 131 - JANUARY 2024