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Igal Galili in his PhysLrnR post of 18 Sep 2003 08:49:21-0600
"Private Universe and the Seasons" (forwarded by Dewey Dykstra) wrote:
"I think that this topic. . .[the Seasons]. . . belongs, first of
all, to the optics curriculum of high school, where it is to be
addressed using the concepts of light flux and illumination. . . . .
Following and inspired by a strong impression made by Harvard
students' case . . . [Schneps & Sadler (1985)]. . . we, in our PER
[Physics Education Research] group, made a study. . .[Galili & Lavrik
(1998)]. . . I believe that this aspect is critical for understanding
students' failure regarding Seasons."
There are, of course, other critical aspects of Seasons that are not
all adequately addressed in middle-school text books, and even
(according to Larry Woolf [2003a,b)) in the "Private Universe"
Teacher's Guide and the GEMS unit "The Real Reasons for Seasons. .
."[Gould et al. (2000)], e.g.:
(a) The path of the Earth around the Sun is an ellipse with a VERY
SMALL eccentricity e = 0.017 [Halliday & Resnick (1978, Appendix C)].
(b) The Earth's axis is TILTED [23.45 degrees - H & R loc cit] with
respect to the perpendicular of the plane of the Earth's path around
the Sun.
(c) Consistent with of "a" and "b" (and inconsistent with the Harvard
seniors understanding of the seasons as due to yearly changes in the
Earth/Sun separation), when it's summer in the northern hemisphere
some people travel to Chili in the southern hemisphere where it's a
chilly winter and the skiing is great.
(d) The Sun's rays leave the Sun nearly radially but are nearly
parallel to one another when they reach the Earth [as stressed by
Larry Woolf (2003a,b)].
(e) The Earth's period around the Sun is about one year, and about
its own axis is about one day.
(f) The Earth's angular velocity vector omega, due to daily rotation
about its own axis, remains almost CONSTANT IN DIRECTION during the
Earth's orbit around the Sun (conservation of angular momentum).
Considering elements "a"-"f" plus the concept of light flux [Galili &
Lavrik (1998)], is it possible that middle-school students (let alone
the cocksure Harvard graduating seniors) could be brought to
understand the Seasons?
Although I've not been near a middle-school classroom in about a
century, my own belief is that middle-school students could be guided
to construct a reasonably good understanding of the seasons (and even
phases of the moon) by means of Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs
[Hake (1992; 2002a,b; 2003a,b); Uretsky (1993)] in the context of a
Benezet-type K-12 curriculum [Mahajan & Hake (2002)].
Unfortunately, the SDI-lab concept - inspired by Arnold Arons [see,
e.g., Arons (1977, 1990, 1993, 1997]; Hake (1991)] but generally
either ignored (Redish & Rigden (1997) or misunderstood [Redish
(2003, Footnote #5, page 146)] by PER's - is as unknown in K-12 as it
is in universities.
"First hand knowledge is the ultimate basis of intellectual life. To
a large extent book-learning conveys second-hand information, and as
such can never rise to the importance of immediate practice. Our goal
is to see the immediate events of our lives as instances of our
general ideas. What the learned world tends to offer is one
second-hand scrap of information illustrating ideas derived from
another second-hand scrap of information. The second-handedness of
the learned world is the secret of its mediocrity. It is tame because
it has never been scared by facts."
Alfred North Whitehead in "The Aims of Education,"
Mentor Book, 1949: p. 61.)
REFERENCES
Arons, A.B. 1977. "The Various Language: An Inquiry Approach to the
Physical Sciences; with Teacher's Guide." Oxford University Press.
Arons, A.B. 1990. "A Guide To Introductory Physics Teaching." Wiley.
Arons, A.B. 1993. "Guiding Insight and Inquiry in the Introductory
Physics Laboratory," Phys. Teach. 31(5): 278-282.
Arons, A.B. 1997. "Teaching Introductory Physics." Wiley. Contains a
slightly updated version of Arons (1990), plus "Homework and Test
Questions for Introductory Physics Teaching" (Arons 1994), plus a new
monograph Introduction to Classical Conservation Laws.
Galili, I. and V. Lavrik. 1998. "Flux concept in learning about
light. A critique of the present situation." Science Education 82(5):
591-614; online at
<http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jissue/32156> for
subscribers and pay-per-view customers - only the abstract is free.
[Why not publish in FREE, scholarly, peer-reviewed, electronic
journals
<http://aera-cr.ed.asu.edu/links.html> ??]. The abstract reads: "This
study investigates high school students' knowledge of natural
phenomena related to the concept of light flux (seasons,
illumination) after they had learned optics. It is suggested that
such knowledge be represented as a hierarchical structure of schemes
and facets. The two naive schemes that prevail in students' knowledge
fail to represent the formal scientific model for the subject. The
problem of the student' failure to account for the phenomena is
analyzed from several aspects. It is shown that current curricula
lack the required conceptual tools: light flux, illuminance, and the
law of illumination, all of which have gradually disappeared from
textbooks in recent years. Light rays provide the sole framework in
the current teaching of geometrical optics. Historically, the
paradigm of light rays has been succeeded by that of light flux.
Didactic, cognitive, and ontological perspectives are discussed in
relation to specific implementations in science curricula and
instruction. The changes suggested might have a positive impact on
prevention of many currently prevailing misconceptions in optics."
Gould, A., C. Willard, & S. Pompea. "The Real Reasons for Seasons:
Sun-Earth Connections," GEMS (Great Explorations in Math and
Science"; for a description see <http://www.lhsgems.org/GEMSSeasons>.
Hake, R.R. 1991. "My Conversion To The Arons-Advocated Method Of
Science Education," Teaching Education 3(2): 109-111; online
as ref. 8 at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>.
Hake, R.R. 1992. "Socratic pedagogy in the introductory physics lab."
Phys. Teach. 30: 546-552; updated version (4/27/98) online as ref. 23
at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>.
Hake, R.R. 2002a. "Socratic Dialogue Inducing Laboratory Workshop,"
Proceedings of the UNESCO-ASPEN Workshop on Active Learning in
Physics, Univ. of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, 2-4 Dec. 2002; also online
as ref. 28 at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/>.
Hake, R.R. 2003a. "Socratic Dialogue Inducing (SDI) Labs Web Site
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi>. Contains a brief description
of SDI Labs with pertinent references and 9 SDI Lab Manuals that may
be freely downloaded.
Hake, R.R. 2003b. "SDI Labs," at the Harvard Galileo site
<http://galileo.harvard.edu/>. The Galileo site is a leading resource
for online teaching materials. Under "Teaching Materials" click
on "Socratic Dialogue Inducing Labs" to bring up sections on: "What
is SDI?", "Who Can Use SDI?", "More About SDI", "What Are the
Requirements?", "Benefits," and "Resources for SDI." In addition,
Teacher's Guides for SDI Labs #0.2 "Introduction to Kinematics" and
#3 "Circular Motion and Frictional Forces" are at < http://galileo.harvard.edu/ > / "Socratic
Dialogue Inducing Labs" /"Resources for SDI" / "Teacher's Guides",
where "/" means "click on." I hope to add Teacher's Guides for SDI
Labs #1 and #2 on or before December 2003.
Halliday, D. & R. Resnick. 1978. "Physics, Parts 1 & 2" Third Edition. Wiley.
Pasachoff, J.M. 2002. "What Should College Students Learn? Phases and
Seasons? is Less More or Is Less Less?" Astronomy Education Review
1(1) October 2001-October 2002; online at
<http://aer.noao.edu/AERArticle.php?issue=1§ion=4&article=3>:
"The wonderful "Private Universe" film (Schneps and Sadler, 1988) is
a symbol of this controversy. That movie shows Harvard students in
their graduation robes giving false or inadequate answers to
questions about phases of the Moon and the cause of the seasons, as
well as high-school students repeatedly misunderstanding the
phenomena. SADLER AND OTHERS SEEM TO HAVE CONCLUDED THAT SINCE
STUDENTS DON'T UNDERSTAND PHASES AND SEASONS, EVEN AFTER BEING TAUGHT
THEM, THERE IS NO GOOD TO TEACHING ANYTHING MORE COMPLEX. In
particular, they seem not to be willing to teach contemporary
astronomy, since they claim students just won't understand it. I
disagree strongly with that position." (My CAPS.)
Redish, E.F. & J.S. Rigden, eds. 1997. "The Changing Role of Physics
Departments in Modern Universities: Proceedings of the ICUPE." AIP.
Redish, E.F. 2003 "Teaching Physics With the Physics Suite." Wiley.
Schneps, M.H. & P.M. Sadler. 1985. Private Universe Project. Harvard
- Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Science Education Department;
online at <http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/cfa/sed/resources/privateuniv.html>.
[According to Pasachoff (2002) this film is also available through
the catalog of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific,
1-800-335-2624.] See also Shapiro et al. (1997).
Shapiro, I., C. Whitney, P. Sadler, M. Schneps. 1997. "Can We Believe
Our Eyes" Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Science
Education Department; description online at
<http://www.learner.org/progdesc/index.html?uid=26&sj=>.this contains
a video of the MIT graduation showing MIT graduating engineers having
difficulty getting a bulb to light given the bulb, a battery, and ONE
piece of wire.
Uretsky, J.L. 1993. "Using 'Dialogue' Labs in a Community College
Physics Course," Phys. Teach. 31(8): 478-481.
Woolf, L. 2003a. "Re: A Private Universe," PhysLrnR post of 9 Sep
2003 11:26:39 -0700; online at
<http://listserv.boisestate.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0309&L=physlrnr&F=&S=&X=6D246E789710268CBC&Y=rrhake@earthlink.net&P=8286>.
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