Examining the mismatch between the intended astronomy curriculum content, astronomical literacy, and the astronomical universe

Over the years, there have been various calls to increase and better represent astronomy in curricula. This is motivated by views within the astronomy and astronomy education communities that the awe, wonder, and interdisciplinary nature of astronomy has the potential to engage students in STEM across disciplines. Reviews of curricula have shown that astronomy topics are represented in most mandated curricula around the world and although there is a homogeneity of astronomy topics in most mandated curricula, this representation has its limitations. By using the Australian National Curriculum, the USA-based Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), and the Swedish National Curriculum as examples, this study unpacks ideas around “How much astronomy is enough?”, the mismatches between astronomy topics in curricula and what constitutes astronomical literacy within the context of the Big Ideas in Astronomy document. The results identify that there is a significant gap at the galactic and extragalactic scales when considering the typical progression of astronomy topics when considering the conceptual, spatial, and temporal scales of the topics. Specifically, topics in curricula jump from tangible concepts within the student’s immediate and Solar System spatial scales in primary school to cosmological spatial scales in upper high school, without reference to spatial and conceptual connecting topics at galactic scales. Potential sample curriculum statements drawn from the Big Ideas are presented as a suggested curriculum inclusion. This curricula gap is identified as a potential source of a similar gap in education research in these topics at these levels, which in turn perpetuates the problem by there being a lack of research-based evidence for inclusion in the curriculum.

Figure 1

The relative occurrence of astronomy compared to other science subjects for grades 1–10. It should be noted that in the NGSS, we used the discipline rather than disciplinary core idea as the overarching parameter, so it seems that the NGSS is missing Chemical Sciences, but in fact, Chemical Sciences is located under Physical Sciences. The Swedish curriculum includes Earth Science in the Geography subject which is covered under the overarching topic of Social Studies. Although astronomy is a small percentage, the fact that it has connections with all the sciences affords the opportunity to use it as a context to teach the other sciences.

Figure 2

The gradual progression in terms of spatial and temporal relations when thinking about concepts in astronomy. This progression places the student at the center where concentric rings represent a progression in spatial and temporal scales. These rings although demarcated do in fact overlap to a certain degree. This is where it is important to have a progression in ideas, rather than isolated disjointed cases.

Figure 3

A representation showing the layers from Fig. 2 and the blurry limits of each one. It should be noted that the layers not only represent increasing spatial but also increasing temporal scales due to the light travel time—lookback time. Images credit: NASA, ESO, Planck, ESA.

Figure 4

Visualization showing the distribution of the layers for each of the curricula. The lines on the visualization represent the number of occurrences for the different astronomical scales for each of the four curricula. Superimposed are images representing the various scales.

Figure 5

Visualization showing the distribution of the layers for each year-level group for all four curricula—ANC v8.4, ANC v9, NGSS, SNC.