Week 7: Our Solar System

The big questions in lab this week was: How can we conceptualize the size of and distance between planets and stars? How can we stop the vicious cycle of student misconceptions instead of perpetuating them? 

What did you do in lab today?

In lab this week, we started by doing a formative assessment on the moon and stars. Then, we discussed our reading and video from last week. One big takeaway I had from that discussion was that it’s really, really hard to change kids’ minds. But we have to figure out how we are going to do that to the best of our abilities as teachers. 

Then, we did an activity where we made a model to scale of the Sun, first 4 planets from the Sun, and Earth’s moon. It was most difficult to come up with a realistic size for the Sun/Moon/planets because the distances are so ridiculously huge. After figuring out the size, we were able to make the model pretty easily. I was, of course, blown away at how far away everything is from each other. Like Allie said during the first lecture: “Space is so weird.” 

One of the big ideas from the lab was that schools can perpetuate students’ misconceptions of scientific concepts and maybe even make them worse. The current and past ways in which we teach and assess students in science are/were allowing many misconceptions to mask themselves in big terminology and rote memorization. 

What did you learn in Thursday’s discussion?

I learned so much during class on Thursday. First, we looked at the results of the Google surveys / formative assessments. One of the key things I learned was that the moon DOES rotate. I had assumed that because it doesn’t really have an “axis” or a tilt like Earth, it doesn’t rotate but just orbits as a giant space rock. I think it’s so interesting and crazy that it rotates exactly at the same rotational speed as its orbiting speed. 

We also talked about the origin of the Moon. There are many theories out there, but the prevailing one right now is that a Mars-sized object called Thera hit Earth at just the right speed and angle to cause Earth’s axis tilt, ricochet off with some of Earth’s material on it, and begin to orbit Earth. We talked about how many of the previous scientific theories don’t make sense, and why this one isn’t a perfect/airtight explanation but makes the most sense based on what we know right now. 

Another thing I learned that cleared up a lot for me was that our position on Earth doesn’t affect what moon phase we see. The moon takes a month to orbit earth, but Earth rotates in a day, so the Moon isn’t moving quickly enough to show different phases in different parts of the world. We all see the same moon! 

Finally, we talked about why the “light side” and “dark side” of the Moon look so vastly different. The light side was closer to Earth when everything was still molten lava, so the outer layers got melted down a lot more and we can see the darker layers underneath on the light side. The dark side was facing away from Earth when everything was nearly on fire, so it didn’t experience any of those heat-caused changes. That’s why we can see so many more crater holes on the dark side- because it still has the fluffier outer layers on it, which show more from meteor impacts than the darker under-layers. 

Pressbook 

1. What did you learn? 

From the textbook reading, I was reminded again about how ridiculously small we are compared to everything that’s in the universe. 

I also learned that the closest four planets to the Sun are rocky, and the prevailing theory why is that their proximity caused the gases on their surfaces to be blown away by the Sun’s ignition. The outer four planets are gas planets, possibly because they were far enough away from the Sun to not be affected by its ignition. 

2. What was most helpful? 

One thing I found really helpful from this chapter was the Ted Ed video about conceptualizing the size of galaxies using discoveries from the Hubble Telescope. For some reason, the idea of the imaging only showing the tip of a pen in the night sky really resonated with me. While the other videos comparing the scale were also helpful, this one helped me really understand just how vast the universe is. 

3. What do you need more information on? 

I know there are NGSS standards that align with these concepts at the end of the reading, but I would like to know how teachers teach these concepts to kids. The size of the universe is hard for me to understand, much less an elementary school student! 

4. What questions, comments, or concerns do you have? 

Nothing that I can think of!