The Astronomical Teacher Training and Workshop
NARIT has organised “The Astronomical Teacher Training and Workshop” to train teachers teaching in school, especially those who teach in science and astronomy. Astronomy is the subject included in Thai Basic Education Core Curriculum in 2008. The ultimate goal of this particular training is teachers are able to use astronomy to inspire students on their interests in science, as well as to have good scientific procedures, and search for more knowledge. The training is divided into three levels with various objectives. The Basic level; inspiring teachers to acquire the fundamental knowledge, use astronomical activities to teach students in astronomy and science. The Intermediate level; teachers can gain more skills for astronomical observing and some ideas to produce projects and basic research in astronomy. The Advance level; teachers try creating the astronomical projects with their students, with NARIT direct supervision to completion. These workshop series has been ongoing since 2010 and has trained over 8,000 teachers over the years
CAAS : the Conference on Astronomical Activities in School
Thailand is one of the few countries with astronomy as part of the required curriculum in secondary schools. As a result, there are many astronomy teachers in Thailand. With increasing interest in astronomy, there are now more than ever many astronomical activities, both formal and informal in schools. In order to support the growing interest, the Conference on Astronomical Activities in School (CAAS) was established. In this annual conference, teachers can gather to share the activities they have accomplished with their peers. This is aimed to be a venue in which best practices in astronomy education are shared, reinvigorate their passion, provide incentives and inspiration for now and upcoming teachers, and teachers can learn new activities via workshops. Moreover, by awarding outstanding achievements made by the teachers in this conference, this allows for ways in which teachers are recognized and awarded for their arduous work.
Dobsonian Telescope Distribution Project
With the success of NARIT's public outreach program and teacher training workshops, there are now, more than ever, a rapid increase in the interest in astronomy. In order to expand upon this interest, we must train and provide support to those teachers who has potential to reach wider audiences. For the past 9 years, NARIT has been distributing 10" dobsonian to participating schools over all 77 provinces in Thailand. Applications from schools are selected based on the schools' past activities. These telescopes are on loan from NARIT at no additional cost. Moreover, participants must go through training workshop to be able to utilize all the equipments on the telescopes. A system of progress report not only ensure that the telescopes are in constant use, but also serve to promote updates and sense of community among our teacher network and has been proven to be effective at reinvigorating interests and keeping up activity.