Newton STFC-NARIT: Using astronomy education as a motivator for long-term capacity building in STEM

天文学是一个几乎所有人都感兴趣和兴奋的科学领域-跨越所有年龄，性别，社会和文化群体。然而，这与它所属于的科学以及驱动它的技术形成了鲜明对比，后者通常被认为是“无聊”或“过于复杂”。这种对科学和技术的不喜欢（甚至不信任）甚至会导致非常年幼的孩子决定科学，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关闭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，特别是像泰国这样的国家，如果它要继续发展经济，就需要越来越多的高科技劳动力。在英国，国家学校观察站（NSO）已经使用天文学超过20年，以帮助在儿童完全发育之前克服这些偏见，并向他们展示STEM职业可以提供的可能性。在这一项目中，将与泰国天文学家分享国家统计局的经验，同时沿着丰富的教育资源，最重要的是，直接获得世界上最大的全自动望远镜-利物浦望远镜的观测数据和泰国本国望远镜的数据。这将大大推动泰国的教育，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事情的兴奋。

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, and the technology that drives it, which are often perceived as "boring" or "too complicated". This dislike (or even distrust) of science and technology 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 over two 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) - and data from Thailands own national telescopes. 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.