This study investigates the integration of astronomy-related topics in the Korean national science curricula spanning from 1945 to 2023. We analyze the placement and extent of astronomy content across different school levels. Astronomy contents in the science curricula have changed in response to social needs (e.g., practical knowledge required for agriculture and fishery) and advancement in astronomical research (e.g., the discovery of exoplanets and the suggestion of new cosmological parameters). Contents addressing the motions of celestial objects and stellar physical properties have remained relatively consistent. In the latest 2022 revised national curriculum, scheduled for implementation in 2024, several elements, such as coordinate systems, have been removed, while the inquiry activities using digital tools are emphasized. The incorporation of the cosmic perspectives in the national curriculum, as well as astronomy education within the context of education for sustainable development, remains limited even in the most recent curriculum. For future life revisions, the active participation of researchers is needed to reflect the latest astronomical research progress and scientific characteristics in the field of astronomy.

Variability is one of the major characteristics of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN), and it is used for understanding the energy generation mechanism in the center of AGN and/or related physical phenomena. It it known that there exists a time lag between AGN light curves simultaneously observed at different wavelengths, which can be used as a tool to estimate the size of the area that produce the radiation. In this paper, We present long term near-infrared variability of optically bright type 1 AGN using the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer data. From the Milliquas catalogue v6.4, 73 type 1 QSOs/AGN and 140 quasar candidates are selected that are brighter than 18 mag in optical and located within 5 degree around the ecliptic poles. Light curves in the W1 band (3.4 ㎛) and W2 band (4.6 ㎛) during the period of 2010-2019 were constructed for these objects by extracting multi-epoch photometry data from WISE and NEOWISE all sky survey database. Variability was analyzed based on the excess variance and the probability Pvar . Applying both criteria, the numbers of variable objects are 19 (i.e., 26%) for confirmed AGN and 12 (i.e., 9%) for AGN candidates. The characteristic time scale of the variability (τ) and the variability amplitude (σ) were derived by fitting the DRW model to W1 and W2 light curves. No significant correlation is found between the W1/W2 magnitude and the derived variability parameters. Based on the subsample that are identified in the X-ray source catalog, there exists little correlation between the X-ray luminosity and the variability parameters. We also found four AGN with changing W1-W2 color.

The Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera combined with a small aperture telescope is an efficient equipment for an astronomy-related lab exercise. This paper compares the different photometry softwares to provide insights on using the GUI-based photometry tool to the conventional command-line based photometry tool. The magnitude of the same point source measured within the aperture is consistent regardless of the software used although the background estimation, partial pixel treatment, and error estimation are slightly different. In a crowded field image where the aperture photometry is less reliable, the aperture photometry with varying aperture size is useful to see the qualitative trend for the magnitude. Due to the variation in ISO settings and the color dependence on the RGB Bayer system, an initial uncertainty of ~0.15mag is expected to be embedded in the magnitude derived from the DSLR images.

We investigate the role of galaxy environment in the evolution of individual galaxies through the AKARI observations of the merging galaxy cluster A2255. MIR diagnostics using N3-S11 colors are adopted to select star-forming galaxies and galaxies in transition between star-forming galaxies and quiescent galaxies. We do not find particular enhancement of star formation rates as a function of galaxy environment, reflected in cluster-centric distance and local surface density of galaxies. Instead, the locations of intermediate MIR-excess galaxies (-1.2 < N3 - S11 < 0.2) show that star-forming galaxies are transformed into passive galaxies in the substructures of A2255, where the local surface density of galaxies is relatively high.