04/16/2026
By Amanda Vozzo
Date: Tuesday, April 21
Time: 4 – 5 p.m.
Location: Olsen Hall 503
Edward Prather, Professor, Department of Astronomy and Executive Director of the Center for Astronomy Education at University of Arizona will give a talk on “Frontiers in Astronomy Education: Developing the Astrophysical Fluency of Astro Majors and the Public.”
Abstract: The past 25 years have seen significant advancements in the teaching and learning in college-level Astronomy, with a particular focus on the introductory general education course (hereafter Astro 101). In recent years collaborators with the Center for Astronomy Education (CAE) have undertaken a theoretical approach to develop a new generation of instructional strategies. Beyond advancements in the teaching of Astro 101, this work has bridged to the teaching of Astronomy Majors courses. After a brief overview of fundamental background ideas, I will lead a deep dive into several new instructional strategies designed to help students develop more robust discipline knowledge, representational fluency, quantitative literacy, and data analysis skills.
Bio: Edward E. Prather is a Professor in the Department of Astronomy, at the University of Arizona (UA). Ed is the Executive Director of the Center for Astronomy Education (CAE). His research focuses on investigating the teaching and learning of topics in STEM. Ed and his collaborators have conducted numerous research studies to uncover students' conceptual, reasoning and problem-solving difficulties over a wide array of physical science topics taught in astronomy, astrobiology, physics, geoscience and planetary science. The results from these studies have informed the development of innovative active-learning instructional strategies shown to intellectually engage learners and significantly improve their understandings, problem solving abilities and self-efficacy related to learning about science. Additional efforts have focused on development of classroom assessment tools, educational technologies, and public outreach activities. Ed has also led the development of a variety of education materials in support of several NASA and NSF funded science missions. Dissemination of this work has been provided through industry leading active-learning professional development workshops that have reached thousands of science educators around the world. He was the 2011 awardee of the AAPT Halliday and Resnick Award, awarded by the American Association of Physics Teachers for excellence in undergraduate physics teaching. Through his research, teaching and professional development efforts, Ed strives to create inclusive and equitable educational opportunities for students and professionals in STEM.