| Abstract : | Frontiers is a yearly astronomy research symposium that brings together students, educators, researchers and institutions from across the world to engage in collaborative science learning and outreach.
Through Frontiers, interdisciplinary project teams comprising of K-12 students, undergraduate and graduate students work on authentic astronomy research questions under the guidance of professional scientists and educators. Each team develops and carries out an end-to-end research project over the course of one year focusing on an open question in observational, theoretical or computational astronomy. The projects involve developing hypotheses, collecting and analyzing observational/experimental data, deriving conclusions, and presenting their findings at the annual Frontiers symposium.
By engaging students in open-ended, project-based scientific investigations, Frontiers aims to develop scientific thinking and inspiration in future generations. At the symposium, participants come together to learn from each other through presentation of projects, keynote talks, workshops and networking events. Frontiers has grown over the past year to include over 500 international participants conducting research, and leveraging on STEM Mentoring camps.
We also present unique projects developed by our R&D team, supported by scholars at IIA, Bangalore and Pune University. The projects focus on Radio Intereferometry and Horn Antenna Implementation, scaling a hands-on experience at universities across India. We explore how rigorous projects can be broken down into structured modules for undergraduate students.
This talk will address strategies for developing interdisciplinary research collaborations and lessons learned from coordinating over 30 international project-based learning programs at a global level. We present findings from courses that we have conducted live, at institutes such IISc and SRM university. We explore what works, what doesn’t, and how we can leverage on data driven, psychology-based learning strategies to effectively impact thousands of students world wide. |
