Mercury,
July/August 1995 Table of Contents
by
Vladimir Stefl, Masaryk University
(c)
1995 Astronomical Society of the Pacific
Six
years after the Velvet Revolution, Czech astronomers interact freely
with their colleagues abroad, while keeping up their centuries-old
commitment to education. Their universities, however, are running
out of money.
The
Czech Republic has been a place of education for important personalities
in astronomy, such as Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, Christian Doppler
and Albert Einstein. Today, the country's educational system is
in a state of considerable modification. New private schools are
supplementing the public schools, while elementary and secondary
schools have adjusted their programs, mildly reducing the role of
astronomy.
The
teaching of astronomy begins in the fourth-grade of elementary school
as part of the introductory natural- science course, when teachers
discuss the solar system and gravity. In the sixth-grade, the geography
course incorporates other elements of astronomy, such as the seasons
and the duration of day and night. Astronomy is a major component
of eighth-grade physics, and during the section on optics, teachers
introduce eclipses and the velocity of light.
In
secondary school, which is not compulsory in the Czech Republic,
freshman physics integrates astronomy, including Kepler's laws.
Senior-year astrophysics has three sections: "Radiation," which
includes the distances, mass, spectra, and fundamental parameters
of stars; "Sources of Energy," which describes stellar interiors,
energy sources, and evolution; and "Structure and Evolution of
Universe," which deals with cosmology.
Despite
the rigorous curriculum, astrophysics is scheduled for the end of
the senior year, when most teachers lack the motivation to teach
it. They skip astrophysics in favor of preparing pupils for the
school-leaving examination, or give it a very superficial treatment.
In 1988 to 1992, I carried out a comparative study of astrophysics
education at select secondary schools in the Czech Republic, Poland,
and Russia. On a didactic test, the best results were demonstrated
by pupils in Poland, followed by those in the Czech Republic, and
finally by those in Russia. We proposed partial changes in the Czech
astrophysics curriculum and textbook to include more on photometry,
the H-R diagram, and the dependence of star spectra on temperature.
The
dense system of planetariums and public observatories in our country
plays an important role in education. Every year, planetariums are
visited by hundreds of thousands of children. In Prague is the fully
automated planetarium Kosmorama, with a diameter of 25 meters and
seating for 250. Brno and Ostrava have mid-sized planetariums, and
smaller planetariums are in Ceske Budejovice, Hradec Kralove, Most,
and Plzen. All are furnished with modern Zeiss projectors. Following
the sky shows are special programs for schoolchildren with slides,
telescopes, and simulations on the PC. The general public has enjoyed
special presentations on Halley's comet, supernova 1987A, and the
Jupiter comet impacts.
The
country has about 30 public observatories. Amateurs have produced
meaningful data concerning comets, meteors, occultations, and variable
stars. Their data are often used by professional astronomers. Several
new popular books written by professional astronomers have been
published recently, such as The Universe, The Universe Is
Our World by Jiri Grygar and The Universe Around Us
by Josip Kleczek. The popular scientific magazine, Rise hvezd
("The Realm of Stars"), has been published in the Czech language
since 1920.
The
largest astronomical research center in the Czech Republic is the
Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Science near Prague
at Ondrejov. Solar research is a long- standing tradition in Ondrejov.
There are radio telescopes, instruments for observing the fine structure
of the solar photosphere and chromosphere, a spectrograph for studying
rapid processes in the Sun, and a spectrograph for measuring magnetic
fields. The institute cooperates in the field of solar physics with
similar centers worldwide.
The
stellar investigations were boosted by the installation of a 2-meter
telescope in Ondrejov during the 13th General Assembly of the IAU
in Prague in 1967. This telescope has studied `Be' stars, peculiar
`A' stars, novae, close binaries, and stellar atmospheres. Ondrejov
astronomers also study meteors and meteorites and model the distribution
of matter in the Galaxy.
Research
on stars and interstellar and interplanetary matter also takes place
at Charles University in Prague and Masaryk University in Brno,
which also educate professional astronomers. These departments use
65- and 60-centimeter reflectors for photoelectric photometry.
Science
and education have substantially changed in our country over the
past five years. We have greater access to scientific information
from around the world, via email and professional conferences, which
we can attend now that restrictions on travel have been lifted.
But there are fewer sources of financial support. The budget of
Masaryk University, for example, has not changed in the past two
years despite annual inflation of 12 percent. The Czech Republic
has not the money for state support of basic research, a predicament
our colleagues elsewhere seem to be sharing.
VLADIMIR
STEFL is a professor in the Department of Theoretical Physics
and Astrophysics at Masaryk University in Brno, Jihomoravsky, Czech
Republic. His email address is stefl@csbrmu11.bitnet.
Illustration
caption
The
Ondrejov Observatory of the Czech Academy of Sciences, located 32
kilometers (20 miles) southwest of Prague. In addition to this older
dome is a modern 2-meter instrument. Postcard courtesy of Vladimir
Stefl. |
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