A Gateway to Teach Trigonometry: Lakshmi Bekka Ramachandra at the OAE’s 4th Shaw-IAU Workshop
0Title: Astronomy – A gateway to teach Trigonometry.
Summary: Using concepts of Astronomy to introduce ideas in Trigonometry.
This was a talk given at the 4th Shaw-IAU Workshop on Astronomy for Education, organised by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE, http//astro4edu.org).
When students are introduced to Trigonometry as something totally new, they find it very difficult to understand. When the same topics are introduced as another way of expressing the ideas of Triangles and Circles that are already familiar to them, we as teachers will be bridging the gap between known and unknown. We will be leading them to understand the “Unknown” through “Known”. Bringing in examples from Astronomy greatly helps in building this bridge. In this contribution, I would like to share my experience of conducting workshops for Teachers on “Trigonometry through examples from Astronomy”. This approach would be beneficial for both teachers and students.
About Lakshmi Bekka Ramachandra:
Ms Lakshmi Bekka Ramachandra is currently working as a Senior Scientific Officer at Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium. She is involved in all the non formal educational and Science popularization activities of the Planetarium. She has conducted several workshops for Teachers as well as students of different age groups on several topics in Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy. She believes in integrating various branches of Science and Art to develop a better understanding of any subject.
About the 4th Shaw-IAU Workshop:
The topic for this year’s Shaw-IAU Workshop on Astronomy for Education is ‘Leveraging the potential of astronomy in formal education’ and is scheduled to run 15 to 17 November 2022 as a fully virtual event on Hopin as in previous years. This year’s Shaw-IAU Workshop focuses on the role of astronomy in the core regions of formal, primary and secondary, education: How do we teach astronomy as its own subject? What is the role of astronomy in teaching physics or chemistry – or in communicating such a central future topic as climate change? In sessions marked with a * we aim to hear specifically from teachers. We also address the question of how to approach those who set the framework for teaching: How can you get your administration, or at a much higher level: your education ministry, to listen to you? Last but not least we look at how to bridge the divide between the fundamentals that are commonly taught in school and results from cutting-edge research, which tend to be fascinating to students and the general public alike. he workshop was organised by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (http://astro4edu.org). More details can be found on: https://astro4edu.org/shaw-iau/4th-shaw-iau-workshop/
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