I agree that this is something to be proud of in the UK, but I've another bugbear of my own to lobby for. I believe it should be in the curriculum that all school children should be given astronomy lessons and be made to look through a proper telescope to demystify the heavens and create an understanding other than simply reciting the order of the planets - in many cases still learning that pluto is a major planet rather than a dwarf planet along with it's new siblings.

Another way of introducing this would be through 'scale' classes. This would be where students are taught the size of things in our universe starting from the smallest particles up to galactic clusters and the edge of the visable universe - it doesn't have to be complex, just say what and where these things are and how big they are in relation to each other. Outside of watching startrek, I had no concept of these things until way into being an adult and have come to value this knowledge immensely from a personal level and especially in criticism of the various forms of cultural nonsense we have to endure.