Educational Resources

Lesson Plans

Our education committee is working to create a set of astronomy lesson plans that can be used by educators in various classroom settings. Existing lesson plans from our 2018 AAS workshop can be viewed below. These plans focus on using Astrobites in your classrooms, both as reading and writing assignments. They include the assignments themselves, a grading rubric, links to handouts and useful resources, and suggestions on how to adapt them to different levels (entry-level undergraduate, upper-level undergraduate, and graduate students).

Classroom Partnerships

We encourage educators to reach out to us to collaborate in various ways.

Are your students writing Astrobites-style articles? We’d love to publish some of them! Send us an email at [email protected] and [email protected] with information about your class, and we can discuss partnering with you and your students.

More info on student bites:

If you have articles that your students would like to submit, either you or your student can reach out to [email protected] saying that you have a summary of (insert paper name here) from a class assignment with you, and you’re interested in publishing it. (This is basically the same as our process for usual guest posts, which can be found here, but with an added mention of it being from a specific class)
If you end up having a larger group of students, we ask that you as the instructor reach out to [email protected] and [email protected] with a heads up that you have many students interested, so our editorial team can prepare for the influx of submissions and/or coordinate a special submission form for your course.

Are you interested in being on our mailing list for Astrobites education focus groups and discussions? Fill out our Educator Interest Form to join the list!

You can also email us at [email protected] if you have questions about the lesson plans, suggestions for things you’d like to see on this page or in future lesson plans, or any other questions/comments/ideas!

Sister Sites

While you’re here, be sure to check out our education-related sister sites, BiteScis (for high school educators) and Physics Education Research Bites (PERbites)!

Education Papers and Bites

Research Papers

  1. Sanders, Nathan E., Susanna Kohler, and Elisabeth Newton. “Preparing undergraduates for research careers: using Astrobites in the classroom.” arXiv preprint arXiv:1208.4791 (2012).
  2. Sanders, Nathan E., et al. “Incorporating current research into formal higher education settings using Astrobites.” American Journal of Physics 85.10 (2017): 741-749. Associated Astrobite: Will you use Astrobites in your course this Fall?
  3. Khullar, Gourav, et al. “Astrobites as a Community-led Model for Education, Science Communication, and Accessibility in Astrophysics.” arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.09496 (2019).
  4. Lewis, Briley L., Waggoner, Abygail, et al. “Improving Undergraduate Astronomy Students’ Skills with Research Literature via Accessible Summaries: A Case Study with Astrobites-based Lesson Plans” arXiv preprint, submitted to PRPER 2024.

Teaching

  1. Will you use Astrobites in your course this Fall? by Nathan Sanders (11 Jun 2017)
  2. How TAs Make a Difference in the Classroom by Briley Lewis (15 Nov 2019)
  3. Improving the Effectiveness of Graduate STEM Education by Caitlin Doughty (13 Dec 2019)
  4. Making your classroom accessible for diverse learners by Nick Young (21 Feb 2020)
  5. Bringing a Scale Model Solar System to CU Boulder by James Negus (19 Jan 2022)
  6. Writing Astrobites in Your Courses! by Michael Hammer (3 Jun 2022)
  7. Increasing Accessibility in STEM Classrooms Through Access Talk by Ali Crisp (21 Jul 2022)

Outreach

  1. Pack a Spacesuit for Camp this Summer! by Shannon Hall (23 Jul 2012)
  2. A new look at outreach and the American Astronomical Society by Allison Strom (20 Jan 2013)
  3. AAS Astronomy Ambassadors and You by Meredith Rawls (13 Sep 2013)
  4. Astronomy Camp: A Lesson in Asking Questions by Jenny Calahan (19 Jul 2019)
  5. The Pulsar Search Collaboratory: Making Pulsar Science Accessible to High School Students by Haley Wahl (1 Oct 2019)
  6. Experiencing a dark tour of the universe by Emma Foxell (25 Nov 2019)
  7. You should get Twitter…for science! by Briley Lewis (17 Jan 2020)
  8. Outreach for Astronomers: Letters to a Pre-Scientist and MIT Astrogazers by Briley Lewis (6 Mar 2020)
  9. Flipping the Paradigm: How Maunakea Scholars brings Astronomy Research to the Classroom by Ellis Avallone (10 Apr 2020)
  10. Tweeping up with the Astronomers: Sharing Your Science with Twitter by Haley Wahl (21 Apr 2020)
  11. Beyond the Lecture Hall: Making the most of a university astronomy club by John Weaver (5 Jun 2020)
  12. Astrobites goes multilingual! by Elena González Egea, Jo Ramasawmy, and Luna Zagorac (26 Sep 2020)
  13. Bringing Together Art & The Cosmos by Briley Lewis (2 Dec 2021)
  14. Effective Science Communication by Jana Steuer (15 Apr 2022)
  15. Extended Reality in Astronomy Education/Outreach by Lindsey Gordon (26 Apr 2022)

The GRE

  1. The impact of the Physics GRE in astronomy graduate admissions by Leonardo dos Santos (9 Sep 2016)
  2. Drop It Like It’s Biased: A Step-by-Step Guide to Dropping the GRE by Kate Storey-Fisher (15 Nov 2019)
  3. Another Strike Against the Physics GRE by Briley Lewis (27 Nov 2020)

Inclusive Practices

  1. Bringing Equity and Inclusion to Your Workspace by Kelly Malone (7 Oct 2016)
  2. Building an Inclusive Astronomy Community by Gourav Khullar (25 Dec 2017)
  3. Thinking Beyond ADA Compliance: How to Make Astronomy Accessible by Briley Lewis (6 Sep 2019)
  4. Distance Learning Can Make Astronomy Education More Accessible by Laura Martin (6 Oct 2019)
  5. Astrobites goes multilingual! by Elena González Egea, Jo Ramasawmy, and Luna Zagorac (26 Sep 2020)
  6. Making your classroom accessible for diverse learners by Nick Young (21 Feb 2020)
  7. Introducing the DAIS (Disabled for Accessibility In Space) network by Jamie Molaro (27 May 2021)
  8. Getting Started in Sonification by Will Saunders (17 Jun 2021)
  9. The Audible Universe by Katya Gozman (13 Sep 2021)
  10. Astrobites at SciAccess 2021: Making your Poster Presentations Accessible for All by Katya Gozman (24 Dec 2021)
  11. Mission: AstroAccess is Making Space Accessible for All by Briley Lewis (24 Dec 2021)
  12. Developing an Inclusive Culture for LGBTQ+ Physicists by Jessie Thwaites (29 Apr 2022)
  13. The Universe, One Word at a Time by Katya Gozman (6 Jul 2022)
  14. Making Astronomy Accessible for Blind and Visually Impaired Astronomers by Jessie Thwaites (17 Jul 2022)
  15. Deaf Astronomers Throughout History by Briley Lewis (25 Jul 2022)

Lesson Plan Document