Dr David Boyce is a physics teacher, astrophysicist and passionate advocate for astronomy education. In these 17 questions, he shares his experiences of teaching, astronomy, practical science and inspiring the next generation of physicists.
Question 1
What first sparked your interest in astronomy?
Great question, one that I think about quite a lot. In 1986, Halley’s Comet made a pass through the inner Solar System and, as a small child, I was taken outside and shown it. I might, with a bit of good luck, still be around to see it when it returns in 2061. I didn’t really know what it was, but it made a lasting impact.
Ten years later, another comet became clearly visible to the naked eye, and I recorded in a little exercise book exactly where it was every night and tracked its movement through the sky. I was hooked! I still keep that little astronomy logbook; it now contains 30 years of observations. Everything from the first time I observed each planet to making actual scientific discoveries with some of the largest telescopes on Earth.
Question 2
Why did you move from astrophysics research into teaching?
Quite simply, I needed a job! During my PhD, the parts that I really enjoyed were the parts where I got to discuss science with an audience, and my supervisor told me that there was this job out there where you got to do this every day. It just seemed obvious.
I was put off by the bottlenecks in academia, where you could advance through postdocs and, at age 40, there would likely be no tenured position anywhere. I didn’t want that.
Teaching is a great career; you are in demand, especially if you are good at it, and there are lots of opportunities for career progression if you want it.
Question 3
How does your PhD influence your classroom teaching?
The head of science in my training school told me that PhDs made poor teachers. I’m not sure how he justified it. Now that I am his age, I feel it was more about hierarchy: you might have a PhD, but here you’re nothing but a trainee teacher, that sort of thing.
Given that I felt my PhD had definitely made me a better teacher (and I still do), I didn’t think he was correct. When we do the space topic, I can let my students in on details about how stars work, how they die, how black holes work. I can tell them about the mysteries, the things we don’t know. The things that are not in the textbook.
Being taught by a PhD astrophysicist is a very different experience!
Question 4
Why did you pursue five chartered qualifications?
To tell you the truth, largely because of my background. Being a free-school-meal pupil and the first in my family to go to university, I realised that a different life was possible for me and that I should grasp every opportunity to equip myself with qualifications.
So I gained a first-class degree, a PhD in astrophysics and became chartered, which is the terminal qualification, in five completely different disciplines. Currently, this level of qualification is unmatched by anybody in the world.
I think back to that kid standing in that separate free-school-meal dinner queue, which I still can’t believe was an actual thing, and I think, yes, you did all right.
Question 5
What have you learnt from teaching three sciences?
Mainly, that it is just really good fun. Some teachers like to stick to their discipline, but I greatly enjoy teaching all the sciences. Yes, it takes a little work to bring all of the A-level knowledge in, but it is a worthwhile investment.
I remember being in Year 8 and experiencing the wonder and excitement of making that personal discovery of how things worked, and I still feel it when I’m teaching science. This feeling doesn’t focus on one science; it is present in all of them.
Question 6
Why is astronomy such a good route into physics?
Because it’s cool. That is, astronomy is inherently interesting and almost everybody can find it interesting. Other parts of physics do not have the same universal appeal.
Can I make you excited by potential dividers? Not exactly. Space, though—space is incredible.
From things we can see in the night sky to the incredible story of how all of the elements came to be and the cosmology of the Universe, space provides the gravity, the long-range force that draws young people into the discipline.
Question 7
What inspired you to create GCSE Astronomy Online?
It’s a wonderful course and takes a pupil through a fantastic journey. But there are simply not enough physics teachers to deliver it. Many pupils don’t have a physics specialist or someone with the confidence to deliver GCSE Astronomy, so this is for them.
I hear of schools that don’t run it because they only have a couple of kids who want to do it. I sit there and think, well, what about those kids? This is for them too!
You can do the whole course online and then just ask to be entered for the exam by your school.
Question 8
What was the hardest part of creating the course?
Knowing when to use AI and when not to.
My creation of the resource was at a time when AI image generation was new, and I actively experimented with what it could do. But I didn’t want slop.
Early on, I was ambitious: animate this image of an Anomalocaris jumping out of the ocean under a full moon. Make the Moon closer to the Earth and remove the bright ray craters.
What it created was amazing. To my eye, with enough prompts, it had created a scientifically accurate depiction of the Cambrian ocean.
However, the more AI I saw in my own work and on social media, the more I gained an irrational hatred of how it looked, so I toned it down, using AI only to colourise black-and-white photos.
Question 9
How can schools teach astronomy with limited equipment?
Teaching without equipment is fairly easy; just go with naked-eye objects. The Sun, the Moon, the planets, the stars, that sort of thing.
There is plenty to see, and the thing with the sky is that it is always changing. Astronomy has meteor showers, eclipses of the Moon, comets and passes of the International Space Station—things that get you excited for astronomy’s next great event.
Question 10
What difference can using a real telescope make?
Telescopes are difficult to master, and quite often what you see can be superficially underwhelming. A tiny grey smudge.
What is electric, though, is that this is not just a grey smudge; it is a galaxy two and a half million light-years away, home to billions of stars, some of which have already died and whose supernovae we have just not seen yet.
A telescope is only good in combination with a great imagination!
Question 11
What makes a successful school space club?
It needs to be a safe space that everybody feels is for them. I have run space clubs for over fifteen years in various schools, and the thing that I have always noticed is that people come to them to be enthusiastic about space.
It’s a club where you can be enthusiastic without fear of judgement from others in the class. It picks up those kids who struggle to find their crowd and sometimes just need somewhere to go.
I tell them that this is not preparation for being a scientist. A scientist, I explain, is not a job or career; it’s an identity, and they can start being scientists right then.
Question 12
How can we encourage more girls to study physics?
There are lots of different ways, but the one that I think would make the most difference is that we need to mobilise male teachers in the battle for equal opportunities.
Too many men see themselves as just observers of this problem. Up to this point, key stakeholders have placed the responsibility for increasing female uptake in physics at the feet of women, as though it’s the responsibility of just a few role models and female teachers to fix this problem.
The issue here is that there just aren’t enough women to do this job; the problem is too large.
What we need now is to place an emphasis on the deconstruction of barriers by men. Someone conscious of the barriers and actively dismantling them is less likely to construct new ones.
Question 13
Which astronomy activity most excites your pupils?
Last year, I met a girl who, as a primary school pupil, had come along to an outreach event that I had conducted ten years previously. For me, this was two schools ago, and it was remarkable that, in a different part of the country, I was now teaching somebody that I had taught before.
How did she remember me?
I launched a weather balloon into the stratosphere. We used cameras to photograph the Sun, Moon and Earth in the blackness of space and conducted experiments on the effect of low air pressure on seed germination.
Not only did the entire school come to watch the launch, but the local primary school came as well. We went back and showed them the footage that we recovered from the camera.
It stands out as a career highlight for me.
Question 14
How can 3D printing improve physics teaching?
It can, both marginally and serendipitously.
Some things have to be seen to be believed, and a 3D printer can make some amazing models: working gearboxes, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, holders for mirrors and parts for telescopes. All are useful.
But for me, what was important was just how much fun I had as a teacher being able to create whatever I wanted. It made me so excited by what I could make next that I genuinely feel that it prolonged my stay in that school because I was just having too much fun with the printer.
Question 15
What have your major teaching awards meant to you?
At present, I have won national teaching awards in multiple subjects, but not yet for physics. Which is ironic, because it is what I am ultimately known for. I would love to win that one one day.
Teachers don’t often experience the same level of encouragement as we dish out to our pupils. When a teacher goes above and beyond what the job requires, one thing that really makes you feel that it was worth it is somebody noticing.
If what you’re doing is influencing thousands of people beyond your own school, then you really should find acknowledgement at a national level. Some learned societies are really good at this.
We need to see all of those people doing great work, both in and outside of their own schools, suitably celebrated.
Question 16
How has boarding shaped your approach to pastoral care?
I never went to boarding school, but I wish I had. I think modern boarding is great in a world where business has become international.
To provide a calm, settled and caring environment for children of global parents is, in the circumstances, what is best for those children.
And children are children; they are just people who need professional adults in their lives to keep them going. As a housemaster, I have realised that just being a calm, present and consistent person can mean being the right person in the right place to make a big difference.
A boarding house is like a giant family, and living together teaches respect, cooperation and fellowship.
Question 17
What would you most like to change about physics education?
It needs to be fun.
I am perhaps old school in my pedagogical values, in that I was doing direct instruction before it became fashionable. Let me teach you. I can teach you this better than you can teach it yourself.
I rejected discovery learning. I rejected the idea of the limited attention span. Just be more interesting.
I think that when we strip away all extraneous cognitive load, we run the risk of removing the hinterland and context of the learning. We are not programming robots; we are holding a piece of knowledge, and through skilfully placing it in its relevant context, learning occurs that makes science meaningful when it is recalled.
Einstein once said, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
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