students based project for future collaborative space education

Paper number

IAC-14,E1,1,5,x23387

Author

Ms. Ayako Suzuki, Japan

Coauthor

Ms. Ayami Shigeno, Japan

Year

2014

Abstract

The collaboration of various fields have been critical for current aerospace exploration. This trend is also important for space education, however it does not yet seem to be enough. Students at University of Toyama have organized the “Space & Life” project for local primary students. Primary education has great possibility to promote curiosity among the young at an early stage. Therefore University of Toyama students developed space educational materials that includes various academic fields. The purpose of this project is to achieve collaborative space education for future aerospace exploration.

University students developed their own educational materials based on their different academic backgrounds and JAXA’s educational seminar. The project team included 4 medical students, 1 engineering student and 1 agricultural student. Collaboration of different academic fields was greatly achieved to carry out a 1-day space educational event. With the support of a local primary school, we had the opportunity to hear primary school teachers’ ideas about our event. They also allowed us to inform and invite their students to the event.

 As a result, organizers found that participants discovered relationships between Space and Life, and they developed primary interest toward both fields. Furthermore, participants’ parents were also invited, and they　showed great pleasure to participate in the same event with their children. It can be concluded that this project could be developed for people of all ages. 
In conclusion, we strongly feel that space education should be more collaborative. Though aerospace exploration has a synergetic trend, space education has not yet achieved that level. Our pilot project has great possibility to develop space education to be lifelong education for all people. This paper introduces an example of students based collaboration project for space education, and shows suggestions to compose future educational models from the perspective of university students.

Abstract document

IAC-14,E1,1,5,x23387.brief.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-14,E1,1,5,x23387.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

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