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Teaching Teachers in the Planetarium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Roland Szostak*
Affiliation:
Institut für Didaktik der Physik, Universität Münster, Wilhelm-Klemm-Strasse 10, 4400 Münster, Federal Republic of Germany

Extract

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Many people do not know what a planetarium is. Since this disappointing fact is even true for well-educated people, including students and teachers, many pupils will never hear about planetariums. In order to spread knowledge about planetariums, universities can play a major role. One of the best ways is to visit a planetarium with students, especially those who will become teachers. Such a visit is a very efficient multiplying factor.

But in order to make a planetarium visit efficient, one should not go unprepared. We therefore go with education students who are enrolled in an astronomy course. Before their visit, we inform them about what a planetarium is and about how it is used. We teach them, for example, specific terms of the rotating sky, its coordinates, and the significance of the ecliptic and of retrograde loops. And of course, we teach the students how the sky appears from different latitudes, including the equator and the southern hemisphere. We also teach the technical aspects of how the projector works.

Type
12. Planetariums
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990