After the democratization of South African society it became clear that there was a need to develop a new curriculum. This process started in the early 1990’s and the implementation of a new curriculum began in 1998. The South African experience also gives an indication of how best astronomers, and other scientists, can intervene to maximize their impact.

Considerable attention is paid to how we teach science and to how our students learn it. Even though similar questions are asked by scientists and science teachers in all countries, one finds that resources available for science education in developing countries are often scarce.

Evaluation and assessments of informal education programs, small or large, such as science museum traveling exhibits, interpretive kiosks, hands-on activities and very large public programs have been challenging due to the diverse nature of objectives, setups, and expected outcomes of these programs. Almost all institutions that develop and present IE programs include, in their staff, evaluation specialists. However, for very large public outreach efforts, which include participation of many institutions located across the country, larger evaluation groups/institutions can contribute more objective and extensive evaluation and assessment instruments. Such instruments will help to identify whether the program was successful and if the learning objectives were achieved. They can also lead to ‘lessons learned’ for future events and serve as possible model evaluation instruments for informal education institutions/museums/science centers where the budgets do not allow for contracting independent reviewers. The Eclipse 2001 event was developed and executed with the partnership of the Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum, (SECEF), The Exploratorium (the Museum of Science, Art and Human Perception, in San Francisco), and NASA’s STEREO Mission. American Institutes for Research (AIR), an independent evaluation company from Boston was contracted to develop and implement the evaluation.

The school curriculum in many countries includes astronomical topics such as the seasons, phases of the moon, planets and stars. Yet most teachers at all school levels do not know any astronomy and have difficulty teaching that part of the curriculum. Even if they have some knowledge of the subject they may not have the resources to illustrate it and enthuse their students. One solution is to take them to a place specializing in astronomy education – a suitable science center or museum or planetarium or public observatory.