Published: 21st October 2026 08:00 (UTC)

The Asia-Europe Astro Edu initiative has now entered its first phase. Coordinated by the OAE Node France, the OAE Centers Italy and India, and the OAE Node Nepal, the project brings together 28 selected participants from the four countries: teachers, teacher trainers, astronomy educators, researchers and NAECs. Its aim is to design national teacher-training programmes adapted to each national context, while building on a common foundation shared across the four countries.

The first webinar took place on 23 September, with Saeed Salimpour (Deakin University, Australia) on Big Ideas in Astronomy and Learning Progressions. Twenty of the 28 project participants attended, together with representatives of the four organising OAE Centers and Nodes. Following a flipped-classroom format, participants watched the presentation beforehand and contributed questions and comments to a shared document, leaving the online session entirely for discussion.

The discussion focused in particular on how the Big Ideas and learning progressions can be understood from an astronomy for education perspective: not necessarily teaching astronomy as a separate body of knowledge, but using astronomy to connect and support learning across existing subjects and curricula. Another important strand concerned the role of cultural knowledge and everyday experiences, and how these can provide starting points for developing scientific understanding.

This first discussion opens a series of webinars that will continue with Nature of Science and modelling, Inquiry-Based Learning, connections with educational tools and practices, and the evaluation of teacher training. The shared reflections from this first phase will then feed into teacher-training activities developed and analysed in the four national contexts during 2027.

         

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