Shaw-IAU Workshops by the OAE

We believe that the global science curriculum standards for astronomy education underestimate the actual ability of pupils. We conducted interviews with 54 students from grades 1 to 6 about the moon phase concept. It revealed that few students are working from naive mental models, and most can put forward their own guesses and carry out simulation experiments to verify. Students in grades 5-6 can even use the balls of different sizes and flashlights provided by the teacher to deduce the reason for the moon phase and refine their mental models of the Sun-Earth-Moon system. We have successfully helped grade 3 students establish the concept of the moon phase change law and the distance between the S-E-M by combining the embodied cognition with concrete models and mathematical reasoning.

Click here for a copy of this poster (PDF file 1.67 MB)