Citizen science engages the general public in scientific research, providing opportunities to enhance scientific literacy and inquiry skills. This study aims to explore how participation in the ‘Mission Galaxy’ citizen science project affects high school students' attitudes toward astronomy and science, the development of their scientific inquiry skills, and strategies to sustain their interest and engagement in citizen science activities. From a methodological perspective, a one-group pretest-posttest design was applied to investigate changes in students’ attitudes and skills. A total of 115 high school students participated in the study. Before and after participation, students completed a survey measuring their attitudes toward astronomy and science. Additionally, qualitative data were collected through semi-open questionnaire and interviews to analyze students’ experiences and perceptions. After participating in the citizen science project, students showed significant improvement in their confidence in learning astronomy (p=0.003) and their overall perception of science (p=0.018). Among scientific inquiry skills, observation (31%) and classification (25.4%) showed the most significant improvement, followed by inference (14.1%). In order to ensure students’ continued participation, it was confirmed that interface design and feedback system construction that stimulate participants’ interest and motivation are necessary. The results of this study provide important implications for exploring the meaning of educational use of citizen science projects and ways to induce continuous participation.

The Korean Astronomical Society (KAS) Education & Public Outreach Committee has provided education services for children and school teachers in Cambodia over the past three years from 2016 to 2018. In the first year, 2016, one KAS member visited Pusat to teach astronomy to about 50 children, and in the following two years of 2017 and 2018, three and six KAS members, respectively, executed education workshops for ∼ 20 (per each year) local school teachers in Sisophon. It turned out that it is desirable to include both teaching of astronomical knowledge and making experiments and observations in the education in order for the program to be more effective. Language barrier was the main obstacle in conveying concepts and knowledge, and having a good interpreter was very important. It happens that some languages, such as the Khmer of Cambodia, do not have astronomical terminologies, so that lecturers and even the education participants together are needed to communicate and create appropriate words. Handout hardcopies of the education materials (presentation files, lecture/experiment summaries, terminologies, etc.) are extremely helpful for the participants. Actual performing of assembling and using astronomical telescopes for night sky observations has been lifetime experience for some of the participants, which might promote zeal for knowledge and education. It is hoped that these education services for developing countries like Cambodia can be regularly continued in the future, and further extended to other countries such as Laos and Myanmar.

The National Foundation Day of Korea (개천절, 開天節) is currently celebrated on October 3 in Gregorian calendar. We review the history of dating the National Foundation Day of Korea and make a suggestion that it be celebrated on October 3 in the lunar calendar. We present numerous historical records on heaven-worship rites supporting the date October 3 in the lunar calendar. It is pointed out that October 3 in the solar calendar has been adopted in 1949 by the National Assembly with the thought that the lunar calendar is inferior and behind the times. The thought originates from misunderstanding on the value of the lunar calendar and from the ignorance of importance of history and tradition. Since there are now many national holidays that follow the lunar calendar, the logic of the National Assembly in 1949 also makes no sense. We emphasize that the lunar calendar should be followed for the National Foundation Day of Korea for its historical and symbolic characteristics restoration. We also investigate the year of the foundation of the first country of Korea, Dangun Joseon. It is found that even though the majority of the literature before late 15th century recorded the beginning year of Dangun Joseon dynasty to be equal to that of Liao Dynasty (堯), it was accidentally changed to the 25th year of Liao Dynasty in 1484 through a misinterpretation of the previous records. We claim that the beginning year of Dangun Joseon should be set to that of Liao Dynasty as recorded in the original literature in the earlier days. According to the two main opinions accepted by Korea, the beginning year of Liao Dynasty was 2357 B.C. or 2333 B.C., which correspond to the year of Gap-Jin (the 41st year of the sexagenary cycle) or Mu-Jin (the 4th year of the sexagenary cycle), respectively.