Category Archives: astronomy education

astronomy education, Science

The Question About Science

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I Hear it Often

The other day on the way home from San Francisco, I was waiting for a plane in Chicago and got to talking to a woman who was on the same flight with me. We swapped information about what we each did for a living, and eventually she came around to what I think of as The Question: “Why do you like astronomy?”

It’s a variant on a question that one of my professors asked me when I was in graduate school and told her that I wanted to take a minor in telecommunications engineering.  She looked me right in the eye and, with a dismissive wave of her hand, asked:  “Why do you want to take that geeky shit?”

The answer in both cases is the same:  because it fascinates me.  It’s science and it presents me with ways of knowing things about the universe (in the case of astronomy) and things about the technical aspects of communication (in the case of telecom) that I just don’t get in my every day reading. Considering that I was majoring in science writing in grad school, I’m kind of surprised that my former prof asked me that. But then again, she was a political writer, and there was (and is) no way I’d want to write about politics, so I guess it all evens out. I couldn’t imagine being fascinated with writing about the ins and outs of political campaigns, but it meant something to her much the same way that science does to me.

So, science is a way of knowing what’s happening in the cosmos. It gives us rules (like the laws of physics, for example) that can be applied to help us understand why a planet spins on its axis, or the wind blows or the ocean currents flow the way they do, or any of a billion, billion other topics that comprise scientific understanding. It’s totally cool to be standing on the edge of knowledge like that, open to the possibility that a new piece of data will come in that explains some aspect of a supernova explosion that we didn’t know about before. Or, that helps us understand just how it was that amino acids arranged themselves in a configuration that helped life arise on our planet.

The other day, I told my airport companion some of that and she looked a bit blank at first. Sometimes that happens, and the next thing out of their mouths is a statement like:  “Oh, I never was any good at science.”  But, this one surprised me. She started asking other questions, stuff that I suspect she’d never had a chance to ask before because…. well, probably because (given her lifestyle and experiences) she’d never met a scientist before or a science writer who could explain things to her. And she asked good questions, which is the essence of being a good scientist (and journalist, for that matter).  Those kinds of conversations are fun, and they teach me as much about what interests people about science as I (hopefully) teach them about astronomy.

astronomy education, Astronomy outreach, NASA

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Generation Y Internet-savvy

But Expects Different Things from NASA

I read an article yesterday about a discussion at a symposium held by NASA, the National Space Society, and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics that explored the attitudes toward space held by Generation Y. These 8- to 31-year-olds are where the next generation of taxpaying space enthusiasts are coming from, but it seems that they’re not so connected to space in the same their parents and grandparents have been. This information is not a terribly big surprise, coming as it does at a time when budgets for space exploration, science education, and research are heading downhill at the same time we have a huge rise in the technology of global interconnectivity.

It’s also not too surprising that this generation, when pressed for information on their interests in space, seems to be saying that NASA needs to give them more real-time insight and connectivity to the topics being explored by the agency. Gen Y is the first to be so totally connected for most of their lives by the Internet and instant communications for much of their lives. They’re comfortable with globalization and want to be involved in science and exploration, but aren’t too interested in hearing about the past glories of space exploration.

This is interesting food for thought for educators and science center folk who are reaching out to this age group. I’ve been in many a conversation with such colleagues, and some are still wondering what these audiences want. Or, they’re trying to tailor currently accessible programming to this generation’s tastes. It’s a challenge, but not too different from the ones outreach people have always faced when trying to get the word out about science and exploration to vastly different generations.