The Cosmos in the Classroom: Involving Community College Instructors in a Hands-on Symposium on Teaching Astronomy and Space Science to Non-Science Majors

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Astronomy (11) Approximately 250,000 students (mostly non-science majors) take introductory astronomy courses in colleges, universities, and adult education programs around the country each year. These courses represent one of the most important interfaces between the astronomy/space science community and the public. Surveys reveal that about half of these courses are taught at institutions that do not have a significant astronomy research program, often by people whose training is in other fields besides astronomy and space science. Whatever their background, many people teaching these courses have too little initial training or exposure to effective teaching strategies and resources in astronomy. This 2.5-day national symposium at the Annual Meeting of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific is designed to assist instructors at all levels in doing a better job in their teaching of non-science majors. Mentor instructors, innovators in laboratory and on-line teaching, researchers in educational techniques, and creators of the best written and on-line resources are among the presenters. Much of the symposium is in the form of interactive panels and hands-on workshops. The organizers are actively seeking out the participation of three groups who are not normally represented at such meetings: full-time community college instructors, part-time community and small college instructors, and colleagues in other fields who wind up teaching astronomy.