Keynote Address
An Astronomer Walks into a
Buddhist
Temple
and Asks.....
Edward Prather, Associate Research Scientist and Senior Lecturer,
Director of the Center for Astronomy Education, University of
Arizona
During the Summer of 2007 I was
fortunate to have been asked to travel to northern
India
to teach classes on topics in
Physics and Astronomy to a group of Tibetan Buddhist Monks. For a month, I
shared morning tea and meditation, ate all meals and lived with a cadre of
Monks at the Dzongsar Institute for Advance Studies
of Buddhist Philosophy and Research in a small Tibetan village located high in
the foothills of the Himalayan mountains. I have
no doubt that this time with the Monks will stand out
as one of the most personally and professionally profound experiences in my
life. I am honored to have the opportunity to share with you the beauty,
compassion and incredible perspective on teaching and learning that this
adventure into the unknown provided me.
Dr. Edward E. Prather
is an Associate Staff Scientist with Steward Observatory and Senior Lecturer in
the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona. In 2000 earned his Ph.D in physics from the
University
of
Maine
. From 2001 through 2004 he served as co-director of the Conceptual
Astronomy and Physics Education Research team known as CAPER, at the
University
of
Arizona
. Since 2004 he has served as Executive
Director of the NASA and NSF funded Center for Astronomy Education (CAE) at the
University
of
Arizona
. Through collaboration with
members of CAPER and CAE he has lead several rigorous research programs to
investigate student understanding and learning difficulties in the areas of astronomy,
astrobiology, physics, and planetary science. The results from this research are used to inform the development,
evaluation and dissemination of innovative instructional strategies and public
outreach activities designed to intellectually engage learners and
significantly improve their understanding of fundamental science concepts.
Dissemination of this work is provided through CAE’s research-guided multi-day
“Teaching Excellence Workshops”,
which have been attended by over 1000 college faculty around the nation. Recently members of CAE were awarded an NSF
CCLI Phase III grant to create the Collaboration of Astronomy Teaching Scholars
(CATS) Program. Through the CATS program
CAE has created a national collaboration of Astronomy faculty, post-docs,
graduate and undergrad students who are actively engaged in fundamental
research on issues of teaching and learning.
