Abstract EANA2024-11

Astrobiology can be a fascinating subject for young people. They often have read or seen stories about extraterrestrial life in popular culture, such as science fiction, and might have a general interest in this subject. However, they often have a lack of motivation for natural sciences (or more broadly STEM). For these young people, astrobiology can be used as a narrative story, and attraction to how life might emerged on Earth (physics, chemistry), how it has evolved (biology), and whether could there be life on other planets. More than this, astrobiology could give background information about where all the required elements came from (nuclear astrophysics), how planetary systems, and planets form (planetary science) etc. It could be an overall story of how we got here, from the beginning of the Universe to the synthesis of the elements in stars, planetary formation, to the origin of life, and beyond. The interdisciplinary nature of astrobiology requires some kind of background knowledge from each discipline, and the more you know, the more questions will arise, feeding curiosity.

There are already numerous introductory astrobiology books, texts, websites, and videos. Perhaps, the best way to use astrobiology as a teaching tool for young people is the combination of these combined with class teaching. The body or scaffold of astrobiology-based learning should be as general (or even entertaining) as possible to attract also weaker learners to ask questions and find out more about the underlying disciplines. One such learning scaffold is presented here.