Newton STFC-NARIT Long-term capacity building in STEM using astronomy with younger school pupils

天文学是一个让几乎所有人都感兴趣和兴奋的科学领域——不分年龄、性别、社会和文化群体。然而，这与它所属的科学形成了鲜明对比，后者通常被认为“无聊”或“过于复杂”。这种对科学的厌恶（甚至不信任）可能导致甚至很小的孩子也认为科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）不适合他们，在他们意识到它们存在之前就关闭了令人兴奋的职业选择。从长远来看，这可能会给一个国家带来重大问题，尤其是像泰国这样的国家，如果要继续发展经济，就需要越来越多的高科技劳动力。在英国，国家学校天文台（NSO）十多年来一直在利用天文学来帮助年幼的孩子在他们完全发展之前克服这些偏见，并向他们展示STEM职业可以提供的可能性。在这个项目中，国家天文台的经验将与泰国天文学家分享，同时还有丰富的教育资源，最重要的是，可以直接获得世界上最大的全机器人望远镜——利物浦望远镜（LT）的观测结果。这将为泰国的教育提供巨大的推动力，并帮助泰国天文学家与新的、重要的年轻观众分享他们所做的兴奋之情。

Astronomy is an area of science that interests and excites almost everyone - across all age, gender, social and cultural groups. However, this is in contrast to the science that it is part of, which is often perceived as "boring" or "too complicated". This dislike (or even distrust) of science can lead to even very young children deciding that science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) are not for them, closing down exciting career options before they are even aware that they exist. In the long term, this can cause significant problems for a nation, particularly one like Thailand, which needs an ever larger high-tech workforce if it is to continue to develop its economy.In the UK, the National Schools' Observatory (NSO) have for well over a decade been using astronomy to help overcome these prejudices in younger children before they fully develop, and show them the possibilities that STEM careers can offer. In this project the NSO's experience will be shared with Thai astronomers, along with a wealth of educational resources and, most importantly, direct access to observations from the world's largest fully-robotic telescope - the Liverpool Telescope (LT). This will provide a big boost for Thai education, and help Thai astronomers to share the excitement of what they do with a new, important, young audience.