WAA Meeting & Lecture
Friday, January  12 at 7:30 pm

Live at David Pecker Conference Room, Willcox Hall, Pace University or via Zoom
(link on WAA home page)

Astronomy Education’s Changing Perspective

Marc Taylor
Senior Manager, Planetarium and Science Programs. Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY,

In the past, astronomy education was largely about mathematics, observing techniques, and perhaps theological interpretations of those observations. Over the past 75 years, astronomy education has democratized and become more widely available to all ages, backgrounds, and interests, and can now take us to other worlds and other times. But there has been another change, very recent, permeating the sciences and science education as well — and this newest turn is not really about astronomy at all…

A native of Upstate New York, Marc grew up exploring the woods and streams of the Hudson Valley, and investigating the wider world through popular accounts of science, his father’s math textbooks, and whatever science television programs could reach the family rooftop antenna through the hills of the Hudson Highlands. He attended Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, graduating in 1993 with a degree in art and a focus on geology, having also studied art history, biology, physics, and chemistry. A summer job at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, led to the field of science education. Over the past ten years, as awareness and alarm about ecological issues has grown, Marc has been bringing in more elements of local ecology into programs at the Hudson River Museum; leading nature walks and creating ecology-focused activities and workshops for the public. He is currently pursuing an Urban Naturalist certificate from the New York Botanical Garden and planning for the 2024 Solar Eclipse.

Free and open to the public.