Astronomy education in Brazil: formal, informal, non-formal education, and scientific popularization

Abstract

This paper is part of a broader research on astronomy education and teachers' education, presenting a national overview about this subject. It tries to set up a classification system for Brazilian astronomy institutions and other enterprises, taking into consideration their aims, such as formal, informal, non-formal education, as well those addressed to the popularization of this science. We comment, in a brief essay, the importance of the contextual performance of these instances for the astronomy education, raising a challenge to be considered, related to the study of possible relations among these institutions and enterprises, aiming the advancement of the astronomy education, in a motion against the local and punctual activities dispersion and pulverization. We argue that the research in astronomy education has potential to exert this joint role.

astronomy education; astronomy institutions and enterprises; formal; non formal and informal education; planetariums; observatories; astronomy clubs; astronomy popularization