Nowadays, the climate change, natural hazards, and resource availability become global issues. They play a significant role in today’s life. To meet the challenges of those issues, we are required to have an unyielding understanding of the Earth and Space Science Education because this subject provides knowledge and information regarding the issues.
As a science education institution, SEAMEO QITEP in Science has a responsibility to provide the training course on earth and space science to accommodate the needs of such knowledge in the region. The latest training course on earth and space science has just been conducted on 21 – 30 June 2013. The training was aimed to improve the content comprehension and supporting classroom activities development related to earth and space science, which would be used by teachers to improve the quality of the learning process in class. The training was officially opened by the Director of SEAMEO QITEP in Science and attended by 30 participants consisting of science teachers, particularly the physics teacher, geography teachers, science instructors and staff from the Institution of Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics from eight SEAMEO member countries, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Brunei Darussalam.
There were eight course contents delivered by the instructors from Bandung Institute of Technology, SEAMEO QITEP in Science and Centre for Development and Empowerment of Teachers and Education Personnel (CDETEP) in Science. In the training, the Centre also invited a Keynote Speaker, Prof. Carl Wenning-a physics specialist from Illinois State University to be the presenter at a 3-day workshop on Laboratory-Based Space Science that was oriented on inquiry approach.
The participants were also invited to Bosscha Observatory. This visit was conducted at night enabling the participants to observe the space objects using various telescopes much clearer. Additionally, they were also taken to the Geology Museum and Saung Anklung Mang Udjo as the cultural visit. The participants showed their high enthusiasm during the training course.