Speaker 1 (00:00):

<silence>

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Karen Lee Fingerman Candidate in arts,

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Despite a lifetime of the very best education, students in our classrooms are failing to learn science.
Many of these students will graduate from college with the same scientific misconceptions that they had
on entering grade school. To test how a lifetime of education affects our understanding of science, we
ask these recent graduates some simple questions in astronomy. Consider, for example, that the causes
of the seasons is a topic taught in every standard curriculum. Okay.

Speaker 4 (01:16):
I think the seasons happens because as the earth travels around the, the sun, it gets narrower to the
sun, um, which produces warmer weather and gets farther away, which produces colder weather. And
then, and hence the seasons,

Speaker 5 (01:28):
How hot it is or how cold it is at any given time of the year has to do with the, the, the closeness of the
earth to the sun. During the seasonal periods,

Speaker 6 (01:37):
The earth goes round the sun and it gets hotter. And it gets hotter when we get closer to the sun and it
gets colder when we get further away from the sun.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
These graduates, like many of us, think of the Earth's orbit as a highly exaggerated ellipse, even though
the Earth's orbit is very nearly circular with distance producing virtually no effect on the seasons we
carry with us the strong incorrect belief that changing distance is responsible for the seasons.

Speaker 4 (02:04):
I took, uh, physics and planetary motion and relativity, uh, electromagnetism and waves.

Speaker 5 (02:11):
I've never really had a scientific background whatsoever, and I, and I got through school without having
it. And I've gotten very far without having it.

Speaker 6 (02:17):
I had, uh, quite a bit of science in high school. Yeah. Uh, through, uh, physics want first year and two
years of chemistry,

Speaker 3 (02:26):
Regardless of their science education. 21 of the 23 randomly selected students, faculty, and alumni of
Harvard University revealed misconceptions when asked to explain either the seasons or the phases of
the moon. When

Speaker 5 (02:40):
It's further away from, um, the sun, then it gets colder.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
The earth's

Speaker 7 (02:46):
Position interferes with the reflection of the sun against the moon

Speaker 3 (03:02):
To test how standard instruction succeeds or fails in reversing such misconceptions. We interviewed
ninth grade students from a nearby high school. The students selected had little training in astronomy.

Speaker 8 (03:14):
When it's

Speaker 9 (03:15):
Winters, when the sun is farthest away from the earth, and when it's, um, summer is when the sun's
closer to the earth.

Speaker 10 (03:24):
But why is it hotter sitting in the summer than the winter?

Speaker 11 (03:27):
It's hotter in the summer. 'cause we're closer to the sun than we are in the winter.

Speaker 10 (03:32):
Tell me about the different shapes of the moon.

Speaker 11 (03:36):
Of the moon. When the sun's right here, the earth blocks the sun rays and it causes the moon to have a
shadow right here.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
So that the monthly cycle of lunar phases is caused by the shadow of the earth, is another popular
misconception.

Speaker 10 (03:53):
Can you tell me about the difference in seasons? What's different about different seasons of the year?
Speaker 12 (03:59):
In the summertime, it's like we're close to the sun and the suns, um, rays are coming down, so it's hot.
And in the winter you move farther away, I guess, and it gets colder.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Unlike the Harvard graduates, these students have had virtually no instruction in science.

Speaker 10 (04:16):
And does the moon have different shapes or

Speaker 11 (04:18):
No, it's round.

Speaker 10 (04:19):
It's round. Does it ever look different than round?

Speaker 11 (04:22):
Yeah, it does. It, it's looks like a half crescent can look like a half. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 10 (04:28):
<affirmative>. And what causes that?

Speaker 11 (04:31):
Um, clouds blocking it. Like say you had a half moon, this is here with clouds, and all you see is that
moon

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Like a scientist in search of an explanation. This student created his own unique theory to explain the
phases. I

Speaker 13 (04:48):
Don't know. I don't know what you, you get some kind of key in a worm. See as to why kids don't
understand it all.

Speaker 10 (04:53):
If, if we went outside today and out in the grass there, we'd see the sun up above mm-hmm.
<affirmative>. What would, what would things look like? Um, uh, say at eight o'clock.

Speaker 8 (05:05):
At eight o'clock, this, um, the sun would've road, well, the earth would've rotated so that the sun would
be on the other side of the earth. So then it would be dark here and we'd be able to see the other stars.
Or be, yeah.

Speaker 10 (05:20):
Okay. And what, where would the stars be in the daytime?

Speaker 8 (05:23):
There's a out there, we just can't see them because it's not dark enough. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>

Speaker 13 (05:28):
Heather, Heather's very bright. On a scale of one to 10, maybe I would probably put her at the nine, a
little bit above the level of the other kids, and I would expect her to know the answers to these things.
That's

Speaker 8 (05:46):
The sun, although it's a lot bigger. And then, um, there's a planet and another planet, and then there's
the earth, third planet out from the sun. And then there are six more planets. And okay, the earth
revolves around the sun. The moon revolves around the earth. So this goes like this and that goes like
that. And each time the earth goes like, this is a day and it takes 300 and I'm gonna get it confused. 365
days for the earth to go all the way around the sun. And that's a year.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
You may recognize Heather as typical of your best student.

Speaker 13 (06:28):
Yeah. I would expect that. That she can give a, a better explanation than the other kids could, which I
think she has a little bit and she's a lot more shorter of herself. The other kids, I think might have been a
little bit inhibited and were afraid, I hope she'll tell you what she knows.

Speaker 8 (06:43):
But the earth doesn't quite go in a circle. It's more of, I see. It's more like, sort of like that. I think

Speaker 3 (06:54):
On probing, we see that Heather believes that the earth travels in a bizarre curlicue

Speaker 8 (06:59):
Orbit. And when it's farther away, it's summer. When it's closer right here, it's winter. Okay. It's winter
when it's closer and it's summer when it's farther away because of, um, well at least for us it is because
when, because of this axis, when the sun's rays are indirect, it's summer. 'cause we get warmer when
the earth is closer, the beam, the sun beams are direct and it's colder. Could you draw a picture of, of
what you mean by direct? Indirect. Okay. Or when the light comes from the sun, when it's direct, it
comes straight from the sun to the earth, I think. And when the lights indirect, it sort of bounces off and
then comes to the northern hemisphere. It's different.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
Heather believes that life can bounce and that this somehow causes the seasons

Speaker 8 (07:57):
When it bounces off and then comes, you know, when it sort of, well, it doesn't go in a straight line, I
guess it's more, it's confusing. What about the moon? What does the moon look like? I

Speaker 13 (08:10):
Don't know. Well this is, this is mindboggling though.

Speaker 8 (08:13):
The moon has like four cycles and so sometimes it's full. Sometimes you can only see part of it.
Sometimes we just can't see it at all. Other times you can only see this part of it that's a come that
sometimes looks like a sickle. Could you draw me a picture of how that happens? Well, if this is us over
here, then we can see the moon and the rays from the sun sort of come around and they only illuminate
part of the, you know, part of the um, moon, because I guess it's the Earth's shadow or something.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
Heather's private theories contradict the teachings of even the most elementary science courses.

Speaker 13 (08:51):
You assume that they know certain things. And even the day that I taught it, I come in and I just assume
that they had the basic ideas and they don't.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
Heather's teacher was unaware of the student's private theories as she taught them their first formal
lesson in astronomy going

Speaker 13 (09:09):
Through changes. Are we the only ones that have changes? You ever hear that about the moon? The
phases of the moon? What does that mean, John? The phases of the moon stages, it goes through
different stages. Blocks. Oh, something blocks it. Yeah. It's like clouds block it. Explain all that to me.
Clouds block it. You mean when there are no clouds that then it's always full. How about when it's like
this? Can you see that? No. Now where are we

Speaker 8 (09:39):
On the backside?

Speaker 13 (09:40):
We are here. So when I look up into the sky, what do I see?

Speaker 8 (09:44):
Nothing.

Speaker 13 (09:44):
Nothing. You are not gonna say anything. The mood is still there, but there's no light being shown on
that side that I can see. Would anybody show? James, do you wanna show us that you were showing us
earlier? Yeah. What could you explain to me why this the moon has phases and why we see, you know,
different things at different times? Can everybody see John, you have a question?

Speaker 14 (10:06):
Oh, like a half moon, full

Speaker 13 (10:09):
Water of a half moon is the crescent. Well, why is it called a crescent shaped like a cre? It's curved, it's
shaped like, you know those crescent rolls, right? No nots. Well, yeah, actually it. Same. Okay. Chase,
thanks. Okay. Does the moon have any light of its own?

Speaker 14 (10:27):
No.

Speaker 13 (10:27):
Where does it get its light?

Speaker 14 (10:28):
It gets slight from the, um, rays that bounce off the sun. What's

Speaker 13 (10:32):
Another word for bounce off? Um, reflect. Reflect. Okay. Like,

Speaker 14 (10:36):
Like if you're on the moon, you could see the lights bouncing off the earth.

Speaker 13 (10:39):
Okay.

Speaker 14 (10:39):
You know, there's America and it's nighttime right now. And um, you'd see a half moon right now 'cause
the sun, the, the way the moon's facing the sun be shaped like that.

Speaker 13 (10:50):
So the moon doesn't actually change shape?

Speaker 14 (10:53):
No, no. It just, just the way the sun hits it.

Speaker 13 (10:56):
Does everybody understand that? John Dixon? Did you get that? Yep. Did everybody see that?

Speaker 3 (11:01):
We interviewed Heather again two weeks after the lesson to see how her private theories were
modified by teaching.

Speaker 8 (11:08):
What I got confused about was, um, if the sun's here, what does the path look like when you know that
the earth takes? And I wasn't sure whether it sort of went like this or whoops, but then we figured out
that it sort of went like that. Hmm. <laugh>

Speaker 13 (11:36):
I'm surprised that she remembered the exact picture she had drawn. I mean, she didn't even hesitate. It
was like, right like this. And when we saw it originally, to me it seemed like such a crazy thing. I mean
that really was her idea of it. It wasn't just, well maybe it'll be like this. I mean that really was her idea of
how it

Speaker 15 (11:52):
Orbited. First idea you had about this curly cues, where did you go? Where did you get that idea?

Speaker 8 (11:58):
I have no idea. It was probably because I was looking in my earth science book in eighth grade and I
looked at another chart and got it confused with this one in

Speaker 3 (12:06):
Class. Heather was able to reverse the misconception she had pieced together on her own from books
and other sources.

Speaker 8 (12:13):
So this one's wrong,

Speaker 3 (12:15):
But just as often misconceptions can originate in the classroom. For example, the notion that the
seasons are caused by the highly elliptical orbit of the earth is a misconception which results from
perspective drawings found in many textbooks. Let's see how instruction has altered Heather's other
theories such as the one she holds about the phases of the moon's, the

Speaker 8 (12:36):
Sun, and then here's the earth and the moon's turning around it, and little circles. So the um, moon goes
around the earth, um, at different points in time, the sun illuminates different parts of the moon. And
um, as it goes around, people on earth can see different phases of the moon. Um, you know, the full
moon, the crescent moon, the new moon,

Speaker 3 (12:59):
Heather appears able to recreate the teacher's explanation perfectly.

Speaker 15 (13:02):
What did you, what and what did you learn in class and what did you know in

Speaker 8 (13:06):
The moon in this, in the um, other, in ninth grade class when you came to videotape. That's right. Um,
well we learned the phases of the moon, although we didn't learn where the moon was at those times,
so I don't remember learning that. So that makes it sort of hard because you know what the phases are,
but you don't know where the moon was. I mean, the moon could be over here, it could be over here, it
could be over here, it could be over here. It could be, you know, practically anywhere on its orbit
around. But

Speaker 3 (13:33):
She still has some lingering doubts. And when pressed shows that she still holds onto her private theory
about the shadow of the earth, I'm

Speaker 8 (13:40):
Almost sure that a lunar clipse is when the shadow of the earth is over the moon. So we can't see it. But
I'm not sure about the new moon in the full moon, whether it's, you know, what's in, whether it's that
the, um,

Speaker 15 (13:58):
Whether

Speaker 8 (13:58):
It's that the, it's because the moon's right in front of the sun so that the back's getting the light and we
can't see the light. Or whether it's because over here, you know, over here's the new moon because of
the shadow. But I think it's over here is the full moon. Yeah. Would make sense because if it was just,
yeah, I think over here's the new moon and over here, no over here's the full moon and over here's the
new moon. I'm almost positive about that. Almost. Haha.

Speaker 15 (14:27):
When did you come to understand that?

Speaker 8 (14:31):
Well, if, if this was the new moon, then a lunar eclipse would be so special because I would be the
shadow would all you know, would once a month be shutting out the lighter of the moon or you know,
the light that bounce off the moon. Um, and so as it, so then a lunar eclipse would be so special
anymore. And it wouldn't be a big thing. It would just be a lunar, you know, it would be, um, called a
Newman.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
If Heather hadn't been forced to confront her private theory, she might never have learned the correct
explanation.

Speaker 13 (15:08):
But I also know that what happened was that she had to hold the things in her hands. I mean, you didn't
even, uh, whoever was filming her didn't say, use these to show it. They said, how did that happen? And
she immediately took them and started working with them and, and figuring it out. Um, and I think too
often that doesn't happen with kids that they don't get to see the, to see it exactly in the hands and feel
it.

Speaker 3 (15:31):
We then asked Heather about the seasons and her theory of bouncing light because

Speaker 8 (15:35):
The earth is tilted and the sun is right here. This would be, let's see, this is the northern hemispheres.
Then we would be having summer like that. <inaudible> would go like that. And down here they would
have winter and on the equator be summer. 'cause it's summer, all, you know, all year long. 'cause it's,
they get pretty much strict rays. But when, let's see, winter, when it's over here, because this part of the
earth is showing towards the sun, that gets the direct raises. And that means we're having summer
down here in wind drop. Here

Speaker 3 (16:12):
Again, Heather gave a perfectly acceptable explanation for the seasons, but then we asked her to define
the terms direct and indirect.

Speaker 8 (16:22):
Direct rays are, is coming directly from the sun. Um, indirect rays are when they come from the sun and
then bounce off another object

Speaker 3 (16:31):
Does not let go of her theory of bouncing light.

Speaker 8 (16:35):
Sort of like if they bounced off a mirror, if you had a light bulb here, a mirror here, and if you just light
bulb. So it was like that light would bounce off the mirror somewhere else. And, um, so if you had mirror
here and the light here, the light would bounce. And here we would have winter just 'cause it would sort
of bounce or something.

Speaker 13 (16:55):
I don't know where she picked that up. Somewhere along the line she did. And she just doesn't wanna
let go of it.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
Since Heather's misconceptions were not directly addressed in the class lesson, we tried to alter her
inappropriate definition of direct and indirect light through one-on-one instruction. Notice how she tries
to blend these new concepts into her old

Speaker 8 (17:16):
Practice here. And the, and the sun's rays are going directly to the northern hemisphere. That would be
summer because like, you know, the rays would be stronger both because they weren't getting
interrupted for anything. And because the rays of the sun would be closer together, like Sean Wright
here. And when it's, when the northern hemisphere is farther away, it would be winter up here because
the, um, the raised from some beginning outta the slant and it would sort of bounce off other parts of
the earth.

Speaker 3 (17:49):
Her own personal theory is so deeply ingrained that despite our attempts, she never abandons it.

Speaker 13 (17:57):
I guess you have to realize that kids really do have the ideas coming in and you think it's that it's like a
void, but it's not. They have, they have experiences and they have ideas that they associate with other
things. And until you kind of straightened out those initial ideas, it kind of closes off their minds to what
it is you're trying to get across to them. Really that's 23.5 degrees. That's the angle of the tilt. It's not
that much, it's not that much, but it's enough to give us the four seasons.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
Every time we communicate new concepts, compete with the preconceived ideas of our listeners. All
students hold these ideas, but they're unaware of their private theories. The ocean under the moon

Speaker 14 (18:43):
Has is it spins the, the sun, the spot on the earth where the sun is moves.

Speaker 13 (18:48):
Do you think we are in terms of the, uh, the rotation that we make,

Speaker 3 (18:51):
We must make them aware. Only then can we enable them to learn and freedom them from this private
universe.