Space physics is a crowd-pleaser and a ‘way in’ for many physicists. There are few things in physics more memorable than seeing Jupiter for the first time through a telescope.

We chat with William H who teaches GCSE Astronomy to three schools at the same time via Teams. He makes a great case for teaching astronomy, not just growing the excitement of physics, but also extending the professional repertoire of teachers.

See the links for the schools observatory: a way around the inevitable issues of cost when it comes to accessing telescopes.

We finish by reflecting that teaching across multiple schools will be an increasing (if depressing) feature of physics education. Get in touch if you want to put your view!

Links

https://www.schoolsobservatory.org/

The nuclear valley: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_stability

Edexcel GCSE Astronomy: https://qualifications.pearson.com/en/qualifications/edexcel-gcses/astronomy-2017.html

Join in!

Please share ideas or successes – or indeed questions – on our Facebook Page: https://fb.me/physicstp .  You can also message us via our website contact form at the.physicsteachingpodcast.com, Twitter @physicstp, email using  the address given in the podcast (if we remember), you could even email us an autio file if you are feeling really keen.

Music

• Season 7: Physics Is Our Business by Miracles of Modern Science.
• Seasons 5 and 6: Crescents by Ketsa.
• Seasons 3 and 4: Disco Sheik by Podington Bear.
• Seasons 1 and 2: One legged equilibrist polka by Circus Homunculus.
• Occasionally we also use Cantina Rag by Jackson F. Smith.

The music is used under the Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International License