Talk

The Sun Just Can't Revolve Around Us: Paradigmatic Pressure And Strong Emotional Responses

Talk
Student interest in astronomy and other subjects: research and practical experience
4th Shaw-IAU Workshop
Tuesday Nov. 15, 2022
UTC: 5:10 p.m. - 5:20 p.m. America/New_York: 12:10 p.m.- 12:20 p.m.
Thursday Nov. 17, 2022
UTC: 10:40 a.m. - 10:50 a.m. America/New_York: 5:40 a.m.- 5:50 a.m.

We have shown in previous studies that the difficulty of accepting the concept of relativity of motion whenever it contradicts the Copernican interpretation ("the Earth revolves around the Sun and not vice versa") is widely shared both by students and by their teachers and even by someprofessional physicists. We have therefore developed fiction-based sequences to facilitate the overcoming of this obstacle by primary and secondary school students and by their teachers. We present here a qualitative (n=16) and a quantitative (n=120) study conducted with pre-service teachers, probing the strong emotions felt during the investigation process and highlighting their reluctance to accept the current relativisticparadigm in the context of Earth/Sun movements.

Watch a recording of this talk (external link)