ExoMaths: Manuel Felipe Núñez Díaz at the OAE’s 4th Shaw-IAU Workshop
9Title: ExoMaths
Summary: From botton education to top research using free mathematical software.
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).
Basic mathematical concepts are behind many research fields, but complexity lies in connecting them to a classroom activity. In this contribution, I show a beautiful example where 12 year old students link calculation of circular areas with transit method for detecting exoplanets (geometry and astrophysics). The power of free mathematical software (GeoGebra) to model stars and exoplanets with plane circles, compute the visible area of the star through the animation, and plot the results to compare with observational data. The final outreach video is developed and explained by the siblings Elisa and Hugo.
About Manuel Felipe Núñez Díaz:
I am a math teacher at the Secondary School in Canary Islands (Spain). Previously I completed a master and PhD in astrophysics at the Universtity of La Laguna. My current interest is how to use basic mathetmatical concepts and methods for modelling phyiscal phenomena with programming software. Furthermore, astronomy has a huge source of amazing problems and so attractive to students that I try to develop them in classroom.
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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