Niall Deacon

Co-authors: Markus Poessel, Saeed Salimpour, and hundreds of volunteers from the OAE’s NAEC network and beyond
The IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE) is the IAU’s office focussed on astronomy at primary and secondary school level. One of the key aims of the OAE is to provide access to good resources. Towards this end the OAE is creating a glossary of just under 500 terms that commonly appear in primary and secondary school settings. The glossary serves three purposes. First the glossary provides a solid foundation for future translations of astronomy education resources between languages. Second, the glossary itself provides clear and concise definitions, vetted by scientific and educational experts, in multiple languages. Third, the individual terms can be used to tag educational resources on the OAE’s website, allowing educators to search and browse through resources on a particular subject matter. Terms for the glossary were suggested by our National Astronomy Education Coordinators who also helped to filter the suggestions and to write the initial versions of the definitions. These initial versions are currently being reviewed by hundreds of volunteer reviewers in the OAE’s custom-built translation and peer review system. We aim for each term and definition to be approved by an astronomer and a teacher. Currently 40% of the glossary’s terms have been approved. Approved terms are then passed to volunteer translators who can translate the terms and definitions into their own languages. In this talk I will outline the process for creating, revising and translating the glossary, along with detailing how the astronomy education community can get involved.