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Re: Season misconceptions in newspaper



If the *children* are not asked to identify the misconceptions then they
will never learn the more productive conception. This is a common
tactic in some of the PER curricula. Minds on Physics uses this in some
of their lessons. Most texts never present both right and wrong
examples and then ask the students to identify which example is correct
and why the other example is wrong.

Essentially the big misconception in the newspaper article is held by
the majority of educated adults. We should strive to educate the
children much better. A question that can be used as a companion is
"Which has the colder winter the North or South pole?". I understand
the majority of Harvard graduates make this mistake!!!

A similar technique has been used in Workshop Physics where students
analyze motion in movies including cartoons. They are then asked to
identify which movies are correct and which are wrong. One group of
students reputedly found that the gravitational acceleration seems to be
the same on all planets in the Star Wars series.

I have an interesting tag that I stole from a lamp in a store. It
claims that an expensive lamp which uses a 60 W halogen bulb is more
efficient and saves money over a conventional 60 W bulb. I compared the
rated lumens and wattage with a conventional light bulb and found they
were comparable. Hmmm I have asked students whether the claim was
true.

Publishers will never change the texts as long as they can sell
ineffective, inaccurate texts by providing gobs of ancillary material
such as overhead projector slides. As long as teachers, administrators,
and parents have the paradigm that better looking overhead slides or
powerpoint presentations improves the quality of education, there will
be no improvement in student learning.

Incidentally it is much easier to get children to change their paradigms
than adults. That is why scientific revolutions often happen when the
older scientists retire. There were eminent MDs who never gave up their
old blood stained unsanitary coats even after the compelling evidence in
favor of sterilization.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


On first glance, this sounds like a clever ploy that all those who
want to point out errors in adopted science texts ought to adopt. We
can complain all we want about the errors in texts under adoption,
but the publishers are slow to react..

On the other hand, putting those errors in the public eye then
calling on *children* to identify what the adults have
overlooked...WOW...*That is powerful*...

...Tony French....where are you?...maybe this is the next method for
addressing stupid science errors...I like it...

Just my 2 cents...Karl



Today (6/21/03) on the front page of the San Diego Union Tribune
news=
paper

<http://subscribers.uniontrib.com/daily.pdf>

is a great science activity.

(In the digest you will need to search the newspaper web site for
the=
front
page on this date)

On the part of the page titled "Midsummer Dream: To See Sun," there
i=
s a
diagram of the earth and sun (the sun and the earth are about the
sam=
e size
and the earth is about 2 sun diameters from the sun) and the
followin=
g text:
"The North Pole is tilted toward the sun in June, which is the
closes=
t the
Northern Hemisphere gets to the sun each year."

The science activity is to ask your students how many mistakes and
misconceptions they can find in the statement and the accompanying
di=
agram.
Then have them rewrite the diagram and text so that it is correct and
understandable to the readers of the newspaper.

Shades of a private universe!
<http://www.learner.org/teacherslab/pup/
<http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/cfa/sed/resources/privateuniv.html>

Larry Woolf
General Atomics
San Diego
CA 92121
www.ga.com
www.sci-ed-ga.org

--
Dr. Karl I. Trappe Desk (512) 471-4152
Lecture Demonstration Office Office (512) 471-5411
Physics Department, Mail Stop C-1600 Home (512) 264-1616
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712-1081