Once again, these are my raw notes. No promises about coherence.
When dealing with conceptual change theory, you can’t say, “This is wrong” or “This is the right answer” you have to change their conception.
Jim told about how he was asked why the moon looks big when it comes up. He answered wrong, based on his own misconception. Later apologized to the class and corrected his statement. But there was a cartoon, FRAZZ, ((This isn’t the specific strip Jim was referencing)) in which the janitor was asked the same question and got it right. Getting it right in the cartoon probably reached more people than his classroom. And that is part of why it’s important to get the science right in fiction.
Watched: “A Private Universe. Misconceptions in Learning” ((Definitely watch this film))
In the film, they interviewed randomly selected Harvard graduates, faculty and staff. 21 of 23 thought that the seasons were caused by the distance of the earth from the sun. ((It’s caused by axial tilt.))
Also the phases of moon are not caused by the earth blocking the suns rays.
Jim says imagine what impact you could have if you have good science in your fiction.
Must discover the misconception. Confront the misconception. Before you can change the misconception.
My misconception. The moon is not over the equator. It’s 5 degrees off the ecliptic plane.
There’s a surprisingly good animation on wikipedia, which shows the libration of the moon. I’d never heard of libration.
Kinesthetic astronomy. Using your body to understand astronomy. Check out the packet, developed by Cheryl Lynn Marrow, which is really cool. http://education.sdsc.edu/teachertech/downloads/k_astronomy.pdf
The primary thing that Jim was talking about was that, because our stories will reach a wide audience we have a certain responsibility to make sure the science is right and that we are not introducing the new misconceptions.
I have never heard of libration, but I knew that seasons were caused by the tilt, not the distance of the earth from the sun. Also I knew that the phases of moon are not caused by the earth blocking the suns rays. It might cause similar-looking moons in some cases, but that’s called a lunar eclipse.