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Space Policy 23 (2007) 20–23

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A pilot survey of attitudes to space sciences and exploration amongBritish school children

Harriet Jonesa,�, Kay Yeomana, Charles Cockellb

aDepartment of Biology, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UKbPlanetary and Space Science Research Institute, Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, UK

Abstract

Over 200 school children in eight schools in the east of England were surveyed to determine their interest in space exploration and

awareness of current space activities. Of those surveyed, 33% were interested in space to ‘discover a new planet’, and 24% to find life on

another planet. When asked to list space exploration organisations 77% listed NASA. Six of those surveyed listed ESA (o0.5%). The

data bring starkly to light, despite the Huygens landing on Titan and Mars Express, the lack of awareness of the existence of ESA among

a new generation of European school children. These data suggest that further surveys are merited to determine the factors that influence

interest in space sciences and related disciplines among school children, and the source of their information.

r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The exploration and settlement of space is a field ofactivity that captures the imagination of children at anearly stage of their lives. The images that they gather canhave a profound impact on their view of space agencies andorganisations later in their lives and their support for theseactivities. For example, the Apollo Moon landingsinfluenced a generation of would-be space travellers, manyof whom are now engaged in the development of the spacetourism market—frustrated by their inability to replicatethe 20th century feats of NASA’s astronauts.

This influence early in life makes it important for spaceagencies, private organisations and other institutions tounderstand which areas of space science motivate youngchildren at the earliest stages of their lives, what imagesthey have of space organisations, and which organisationsthey have heard of. The latter information yields insightsinto the efficacy of public outreach programmes and thedegree to which young children perceive a given organisa-tion to be playing an active role in the areas of spaceexploration and settlement that interest them.

e front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

acepol.2006.11.013

ing author.

ess: harriet.jones@uea.ac.uk (H. Jones).

Previous work with university students has providedinsights into their views of space exploration [1]. In thisstudy, we set about gathering preliminary data on the viewsof space exploration among a new generation of youngteenagers in the east of England.

2. Survey methods

Questionnaires were posted to eight schools in the Eastof England, to be completed by children in year 8 or 9 (ages13–15). These were collected on a visit to the school.Questionnaires could be carried out by individual schoolchildren, small groups or by the class as a whole. Childrenwere asked four questions:

(1)

‘List your three favourite topics relating to space’. (2) ‘If you could be a scientist studying space what would

you like to discover?’

(3) ‘Can you name any organisation from anywhere in the

world that carries out space research?’

(4) ‘What do you imagine conditions to be like on the

surface of Mars?’

While the first two questions could be answered withlittle or no knowledge of space, but simply with the use ofthe imagination, the second two questions provided

ARTICLE IN PRESSH. Jones et al. / Space Policy 23 (2007) 20–23 21

information as to how knowledgeable the school childrenwere in matters relating to space exploration andsettlement.

The questions were designed to be simple and non-leading, using just one side of paper. We designed thequestions taking into account formal questionnaire designprocedures [2–4]. For example, we did not ask themwhether they had heard of NASA. With this type ofquestion children are in a position to answer ‘yes’ througha simple desire not to appear ignorant. In our question-naire teachers were asked not to coach the children, nor toprovide prior information nor to help in any way with theanswers. Teachers were informed in a letter that thequestionnaire was for the purposes of understandingperceptions of school children on some aspects of scienceas part of an ongoing project looking at the way science ispresented to, and received by, school children. Allquestionnaires were completed anonymously.

3. Results and discussion

Of the questionnaires sent out, 190 were returned, ofwhich 21 were completed by a small group (three or fourchildren). None was completed by a whole class. Theremaining questionnaires were all individual responses.Therefore, a total of around 240 individuals returnedanswers.

3.1. First question

For the first question, in which children were asked tolist their three favourite topics, the highest response answerwas ‘planets’ (see Table 1). (Children were given no topiccategories—below we list the responses binned into termsused by them or the closest term that describes theresponse.)

Topics with three responses or fewer were: food duringspace travel, space technology, radiation, supernovas, darkmatter, Dr Who, space debris, death in space, eclipses, end

Table 1

Responses to the first question

Topics Number of responses

Planets 114

Stars 92

Solar systema 73

Aliens and UFOs 51

Blackholes 33

Space travel 32

Gravity/forces in space 27

Beyond space 10

Before the ‘big bang’ 6

History of space exploration 5

Vacuums in space 5

aIncludes nine who specifically mentioned Mars and two who

mentioned Pluto.

of the universe, shuttles, naming planets, fossils in space,satellites and NASA.The largest responses were ‘planets’ and ‘stars’. Space

travel received less than a third of the interest in ‘planets’and ranked sixth in the scores. The results are notnecessarily expected. The study of ‘planets’ is a moreabstract area of investigation than space travel and ‘aliens’,which are more prevalent both in popular films and on theWorld Wide Web, particularly for teenagers between 13and 15. The data might suggest that recent investigations ofSaturn, Mars, Venus, asteroid missions and other bodiesdo find a resonance with young children, who can be asinterested in the nature of the physical Solar System asmuch as its biological potential or its potential to hosthuman settlement.

3.2. Second question

In the second question children were asked what theywould like to study if they were space scientists. (Childrenwere given no topic categories—below we list the responsesbinned into terms used by them or the closest term thatdescribes the response.) Despite the prevalence of popularculture depicting aliens in both cartoons and films, alienswere not the highest answer. In fact the most frequentanswer was that they would like to discover a new planet(Table 2). This response is consistent with question 1 andmay have a similar explanation. However, if ‘Aliens’ and‘life on other planets’ were combined into a single response,it would be the top answer.Films and television shows no doubt have a marked

influence on children and their ideas about space. The fiveresponses from children who wanted to discover a hugemeteor heading for Earth could be a reflection on theinfluence of recent films such as Armageddon.Interestingly, few wanted to discover anything related to

space technology. As with question 1, ‘how to travel inspace’ scored low (eighth) in the answers. The reluctance tolist space travel both as a favourite topic and as anaspiration for the future merits further investigation. One

Table 2

Responses to second question

Topic Number of responses

A new planet 60

Life on other planets 45

A new universe/galaxy/star 28

New comets/wormholes/blackholes 10

Aliens 23

A huge meteor/comet heading for Earth 5

‘How it all started’ 5

How to travel in space 3

Water on other planets 2

Life cycle of stars 1

How big the universe is 1

How planets are made 1

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plausible explanation is that the large number of roboticmissions, which have recently dominated the media, haveinfluenced the strong interest in the study of planets ratherthan human travel into space. Complicating factors on thehuman space flight side of the equation are the loss of theColumbia Space Shuttle in 2003 and the flight of the firstprivate spaceship SpaceShipOne in 2004; the influence ofboth of these events is not known.

Whereas for the Apollo generation a passion for spacetravel and technology consumed many, this new generationdoes not seem so excited about it. Bering et al. [5] addressthis lack of interest in space technology among schoolchildren. They conclude that, ‘Unfortunately, far too fewof today’s young people have been inspired by theirteachers and mentors to dream the dream of building abigger, faster rocket to Mars, or designing the nextgeneration of airliner or fighter plane.’ This is clearlyreflected in our study, where technology and space travelwere low down on the list of things children wanted todiscover.

3.3. Third question

In the third question children were asked to name anyorganisations involved in space research. Organisationsmentioned only once were: ‘National Space Institute’,Earth First (which is an environmental organisation),KGB, CIA, British Intelligence, Space Cadets on Channel4, MENSA. The results of this question are shown inFig. 1.

Question 3 elicited the most startling revelation of theknowledge held by young teenagers. OverwhelminglyNASA was known to them, with a collection of other

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

180

Don

't kn

ow

NASA

SETI

Ken

nedy

ESA

MIB

Rus

sian

Are

a51

C. C

anav

eral

nu

mb

er

of

resp

on

ses

Fig. 1. Responses to third question. Kennedy—Kennedy Space Centre,

ESA—European Space Agency, MIB—Men in Black, Russian—Russian

Space Organisation, C. Canaveral—Cape Canaveral.

organisations being known to a few. ESA had one moreresponse than Area 51 and just two more responses than‘Men in Black’. The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelli-gence (SETI) also ranked low. A significant number ofchildren had not heard of any organisations. With respectto ESA, the results are particularly surprising as the surveywas carried out shortly after its Mars Express mission andthe landing of the Huygens space probe on Titan, both ofwhich should have alerted web-surfing children to theexistence of ESA. The results, however, unequivocallyshow that teenagers, for whatever reason, do not remembermany space organisations, but that NASA has effectivelypermeated their minds.Big-screen films depicting space scientists are clearly a

major influence on the general knowledge of today’schildren. Recent examples, such as Armageddon and Deep

Impact, are iconic in the way they portray NASA scientistsat work. There is no equivalent for ESA. However,although these types of films are good for reminding thepublic of the existence of NASA, perceptions of NASA’srole are less clear and Charania et al. [6] discuss concernsabout the accuracy of such information, and how this isreflected in the public’s perception of modern space science.These influences reflect the important role the USA plays

in educating children about space science. The results ofthis study, if they were of children in the USA, would be asexpected, with possibly even fewer mentioning ESA.However, the children we questioned are British schoolchildren who seem to have little or no awareness of theirown space programme—the British National Space Centre(BNSC) was not mentioned once!

3.4. Fourth question

In the fourth question children were asked whatconditions were like on Mars. Given the publicity on thenews media in the UK over the 36 months before thesurvey, about Mars being visible for a long time in thenight sky, as well as about the arrival of ESA’s MarsExpress, the attempted landing of Beagle 2 and the NASAMars Exploration Rovers, children would have had accessto many images of the planet and information about it.The results demonstrated a high degree of knowledge in

some children and a lack of correct knowledge in others.What is interesting is that only 15 said they did not know.So even those who were wrong still had very specific ideasas to what Mars is like.The highest scored comment was the erroneous one that

Mars is hot. This view is intriguing, but the most plausibleanswer is that the red dusty surface reminds school childrenof hot deserts on Earth. Here, the characteristics of red anddusty are associated with hot arid regions such as theSahara. For teenagers between 13 and 15 the idea that redand dusty could be associated with extreme cold is counter-intuitive unless they are specifically taught that suchenvironments exist. Thus, we suspect that this answerreveals a bias in their outlook that probably derives from

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Table 3

Responses to the fourth question

Conditions Number of responsesa

Hot 69

Cold 59

Dry/desert 55

Rocky 53

Dusty/sandy 43

Red 32

Little or no oxygen/hard to breathe 17

Lifeless 17

Don’t know 15

Nasty/harsh/scary/hostile 9

Windy/stormy 7

Little or no gravity 7

Mountainous/canyons 6

No/low atmosphere 4

aAnswers with three responses or fewer were: quiet, dark, misty, murky,

humid, volcanic, no weather, clean, bright, rich in sulphur, similar to

Earth just with no human life.

H. Jones et al. / Space Policy 23 (2007) 20–23 23

television and geography lessons about terrestrial deserts(Table 3).

4. Further directions and conclusion

The survey presented here provides a snapshot of Britishschool children in the east of England in 2006. The resultswere unambiguous in many respects, particularly withrespect to knowledge about space organisations. Futuresurveys should attempt to:

(1)

determine if these views are common to all Britishregions;

(2)

determine if other European school children havesimilar views;

(3)

determine if there is a gender difference in knowledge; (4) determine in more detail where knowledge about space

is being acquired by school children.

The survey we conducted raises two obvious questions,particularly with respect to the startling results ofquestion 3. First, why do so few children know of ESAfollowing the placing of a spacecraft into orbit aroundMars, attempting to land a spacecraft on its surface andlanding a craft on the Saturnian moon, Titan? ESA elicitedonly one more response than Area 51. Second, why isNASA overwhelmingly the agency known to young schoolchildren? Aside from the specific question of ESA publicoutreach, understanding the reason for these responses canhelp yield insights into the general channels through whichchildren learn about space.

An obvious answer to these two questions is that theyhave picked up information from movies and the WorldWide Web. NASA’s effectiveness at public outreach with

its rovers and their discoveries permeates the web—nowthe standard forum by which young people gatherinformation.However, NASA is clearly not complacent about its

position in this respect. Many of NASA’s activities andprogrammes are the subject of investigation by educators,thus providing it with information about how to develop itsoutreach activities [7]. NASA recognises a continuing needfor engaging with school-age children if the future of spaceexploration is to be supported. Studies show that some ofits outreach programmes are not succeeding in manyschools in terms of educating and inspiring school childrenin space programmes [8] and there is clearly a need toengage a new generation of space scientists [9]. But, despitesome of these negative surveys, they assist NASA inunderstanding outreach strategy. In Europe, similarsurveys such as the one we present here are needed tocontinuously monitor the perception of space explorationand settlement among school children.A comprehensive understanding of the sources of

information on space and space organisations would beinvaluable for engineering effective public outreach pro-grammes, not merely as a mechanism for gaining morepublic support, but also because space activities are paidfor by the public. An effective programme to help youngpeople understand why money is spent on these activities isvital.This simple questionnaire has raised important educa-

tional issues that merit further investigation.

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