Space Education: it is time to scale up!

Paper number

IAC-06-E1.2.02

Author

Ms. Caroline Pujol, PiLDo Labs, Spain

Coauthor

Ms. Cécile Montgobert, University of Valencia, Spain

Year

2006

Abstract

"ALMAK", the Space Education Platform: be pragmatic, offer educators what they need.

It is more than ten years now that the Space Education community is working in order to use space potentials for education in primary and secondary schools. The different space agencies have opened education offices fully dedicated to education, developing space-related teaching materials and educational programmes. Gaining experience over the years, they are now offering a wide range of interesting curriculum-based resources that can greatly support teaching in the classroom. The feedback from educators is positive, demonstrating the added value for primary education and in particular for secondary science \& technology education. Space represents a fascinating and evolving field of knowledge that makes Science attractive and entertaining, and stimulates students´ curiosity and involvement.

We have thus come to an interesting moment in time when scaling-up space education is possible, with the collaboration of the entire Space Education community, sharing the common objective of having most primary school teachers and science and technology secondary teachers using space to its full educational potential. 

Pursuing this objective, "ALMAK", the Space Education Platform is born. Our approach is pragmatic, as we try to answer key questions: what do teachers need? how do they prepare their class? which criteria do they use when selecting the classroom activities? how can they easily find such educational resources? The ALMAK project is a recognized activity from UNESCO´s Space Education programme. This web platform offers free access to a database of space-related curiculum-based educational resources. To facilitate their inclusion in the curriculum, the resources are presented and accessible following teachers´ education criteria as age group, space topic, school subject and sub-subject, type of resource, type of medium, etc. This initiative has received a very positive feedback from the Space Education community, who contributes to its development offering total access to their existing teaching materials. ALMAK will be available in the first place in Spanish by September 2006, and will then be translated into English, French, Portuguese, and more.

ALMAK – the Space Education Platform is in essence a web platform, but, by presenting in a unique site thousands of high-quality, evaluated and innovative teaching resources, and giving a free access to curriculum-relevant teaching resources for educators, it is aimed to be a very useful tool, offering teachers the opportunity to quickly find relevant classroom activities to support their teaching, and therefore contributing in the future to the scaling up of space education.

Abstract document

IAC-06-E1.2.02.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-06-E1.2.02.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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