Methods 2: Week 6

 Week 6 

What did you do in Lab today?

  This week in Lab we started by meeting our new professor, Ted. Then we started our exploration of the Earth, Moon, and solar system. To start, we did a formative assessment. Through this assessment, I learned that, as a class, we held a lot of misconceptions about space concepts. For example, one that I had was that the shape of our orbit around the sun and the distance from the sun played a role in determining seasons. I was quite shocked to learn that we are actually closest to the sun in January. These misconceptions are a result of a lack of science instruction in school. It was dumbfounding to learn that Iowa City schools only received 20 minutes of science instruction per week. For our main activity for the day, we turned on a light in the middle of the room and moved a ball around a globe to create moon phases. 

What was the big question? 

    The big question that we focused on for our activity was: how can we create a model that represents the phases of the moon and explains why we see what we see? In order to do this, we turned off the overhead lights and turned on a lightbulb in the middle of the room. Then we used a ball to circumnavigate the globe on our table. As we moved the ball around the globe, different areas of the moon lit up and were visible to the Earth. This activity helped me to better visualize why we see different moon phases. This activity also helped us to explore how we can use common objects to explore moon phases. 

What did you learn in Thursday’s discussion? 

        In lecture, we continued to break down the items that we discussed from the formative assessment. When talking about why we have seasons, the answer is Earth's tilt. At different points in Earth’s rotation around the sun, different sides of the earth are tilted toward the sun. When a side of the earth is currently tilted facing the sun, it receives more sunlight, which causes the temperatures to rise and us to experience warmer seasons like summer. Conversely, when a side of the earth is tilted away from the sun, it receives less sunlight and experiences colder weather. Then we focused on discussing the phases of the moon. At all times, half of the moon is lit up by the sun. However, on the Earth, we see phases because only certain parts of the moon are visible to the Earth, depending on its angle. In order to determine what the phase of the moon is, you can visualize this by placing two hands in the air. One where the sun is and the other at the moon's position. Then the distance between your two hands represents the moon’s phase. If your arms are on opposite sides of your body, then it's a full moon, etc. 

What did you learn?

    The reading taught me about how views changed in the way that people thought about the solar system. In the past, people thought that the Earth was the center of the solar system. However, then scientists like Copernicus and Galileo argued that the sun was actually in the middle. This shift from thinking the Earth was super important to realizing that the Sun was in the center of the solar system was a big change in how we understood our place in space. The reading also explains concepts like why we see moon phases, why we have seasons, and the equinox’s (equal sunlight) and solstice’s (most or least sunlight). 

What was most helpful? 

    It was helpful for the reading to break down big words like geocentrism and heliocentrisms into parts that make sense. Geo means earth, and helio means sun. Understanding these word parts were very helpful. I also liked the visuals that were included, like a video about the moon phases. It made it much easier to understand the concepts and allowed me to see what was actually going on rather than just trying to process the information. It’s a nice supplement to the written content. 

What do you need more information on?

   I believe that I understand the actual science concepts discussed in the chapter pretty well. I’d be curious to learn more about what happened after Galileo. What did other scientists discover about space, and how did this continue to evolve? In general, I think it’s interesting to learn about the history and social dynamics of the past that led people to approve or deny certain scientific discoveries.