Astronomy And Space Science Education In Vietnamese High School
- Paper number
IAC-07-E1.2.01
- Author
Mr. Thanh Tuong Nguyen, Le Hong Phong High School for the gifted, Vietnam
- Year
2007
- Abstract
Since the old days, the Vietnamese people have relied a lot on astronomy in daily life. Traditionally, Vietnam is a wet-rice agricultural country, the life of the people is closely linked with the land and the weather. Therefore, observing the night sky to set exact timetables for rice planting has been a common practice for rural Vietnamese ever since. In 1947; Astronomy was included in the first Vietnamese education program, but it was then merely a part of mathematics taught by teachers of mathematics! therefore students were able to solve theoretical problems relating Astronomy but got very few in practical knowledges! Astronomy was dropped out of the curriculum in war time (since the ’60 of XX century) Since 2002, astronomy has been re-introduced exclusively in the curriculum for students of 10th and 11th class (majoring in physics) of Le Hong Phong High School for the gifted; and recently, it has been added as an optional subject in the renovated program. In dealing with a subject being rebuilt from nothing, we have encountered many difficulties; but thanks to the utmost efforts of our school, various measures have been taken to overcome them : • The only vietnamse text book on Astronomy available is that used in universities; therefore, we had to simplify it to suit our students, meanwhile new informations taken from foreign text books and the Internet had to be included. • Teaching aid materials were non existent, so that we had to make them by ourselves : copying maps issued by the NGS; converting a geographical globe into a celestial sphere . . . • Arranging occasional night field trips for students so that they can get used to star observations with – or without – telescopes. • Offering projects of study to students, such as finding out advantages of the traditional “Lunar calendar” which has been considered as ‘obsolete’ by many. • Organising the “Astronomy and Space exploration club” in the school with various activities to attract students to Astronomy; the most appreciated activity is the contest of “Water rockets”; a highly interesting activity introduced to us by Ms Takemi Chiku (member of the UNESCO team) during the conference on “Space education” held in HCM City (March 8th 2006). Although being in a very difficult cirscumstance of a poor country, we have tried our best to promote the education of Astronomy and Space science and have achieved primary encouraging results.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-07-E1.2.01.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
To get the manuscript, please contact IAF Secretariat.