12C-4 - Storytelling to Connect Students with the Culture of Astronomy

Abstract: As with all sciences disciplines, astronomy is shaped by the people and places in which it is investigated. We explored the ways in which college education majors, enrolled in an introductory astronomy course designed for preservice teachers, expressed the role that astronomy is embedded in cultural practices. Throughout the course, students learned astronomy by considering who does astronomy, what counts as astronomy, and how place shapes astronomy. As a final project for the course, each student wrote a children's storybooks about astronomy that answered these questions. The stories the students wrote provided us with a window into the ways these students see astronomy through a cultural lens, such as by showing families doing astronomy together or by communicating astronomy as something that changes over time through ongoing investigations. Further, the students often wrote stories depicting characters traditionally underrepresented in astronomy. In this session, we will share our thoughts on the importance of storytelling in astronomy, discuss the strategies we used to move students towards seeing astronomy as a cultural practice, and share outcomes based on the stories students wrote in their final projects.