Shaw-IAU Workshops by the OAE

The Shaw-IAU Workshops on Astronomy for Education are a series of events organized by the Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE) of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), in support of the IAU's goal of leveraging astronomy to support teaching at primary and secondary school level.

The Shaw-IAU Workshops are organised with generous funding from the Shaw Prize Foundation.

The 1st Shaw–IAU Workshop on Astronomy for Education was held in Paris on 17–19 December, 2019, to bring representatives of the astronomy education community together on the occasion of the founding of the new OAE.
The 2nd Shaw–IAU Workshop on Astronomy for Education will be held online on 6–9 October 2020 as a fully virtual event. Its main aim is to consolidate the IAU OAE's network of National Astronomy Education Coordinators (NAECs), to encourage the NAECs to make personal contact with each other and with key representatives of the IAU astronomy education community, and more generally learn about the international structures and projects that will feature prominently in the work of the OAE and the NAEC teams. Meeting topics also include common challenges faced by astronomy educators around the world, as well as a global overview of astronomy education at primary and secondary level. The meeting will also be an opportunity to build collaborations, with individual, virtual face-to-face meetings between participants an integral part of the programme. The opening event of the workshop will double as the formal opening of the Office of Astronomy for Education, and will feature addresses by IAU President Ewine van Dishoeck, IAU General Secretary Teresa Lago, and representatives from the foundations that fund the OAE: Theresia Bauer, MdL, Chair of the Carl Zeiss Foundation Administration; and Minister for Science, Research and Art of the State of Baden-Württemberg; Beate Spiegel, Managing Director of the Klaus Tschira Foundation; and Kenneth Young, Chairman of the Shaw Prize Council and Vice Chair of its Board of Adjudicators, from the Shaw Prize Foundation. The opening will also feature a keynote talk by Svein Sjøberg, Professor in Science Education, Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo, Norway. Sjøberg is responsible for the groundbreaking ROSE study of pupils’ interest in various subject areas of science for forty different countries. He will talk on the subject of Astronomy and Space Science: On top of Children's interest. Selected results from the ROSE-project.