CSILE Notes
CSILE is a wonderful way to find out the pre- conceptions students have
about many types of scientific phenomena. In addition, with new graphic
capabilities, CSILE allows the students to show their mental
representations of complex systems, scale, or naturally-occuring events
(such as seasons). We will give a very short overview of how the Reasons
for Seasons unit progressed using CSILE.
First, a "seed question" is posed
to the students. In this example, the question was "In North America, it
is warm during the summer months and cool during the winter months. Why is
this? What is your theory?" Please note that the format used in the
example roughly resembles what the computer screen would look like as the
exchange of ideas takes place.
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| Reasons for the Seasons |
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P: In North America, it is warm during the summer
months and cool during the winter months. Why is this? What is your
theory?
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- 1. MT:
The earth has a tilted axis. When it turns around the sun, the sun
warms the area of the earth more than is tilted towards it because it
shines almost at a straght angle on it and the is summer. And when the
earth goes around the sun its tilt changes and the seasons change. When
the northern hemisphere has summer the southern has winter.
(iF)
- 2. MT:
My theory is that Earth was just ment to change wheather
temperatures. I don't think their is a right answer to that.
(EB)
- 3. MT:
My theory is when the Earth rotates it changes temperatures on
each side therefore it changes seasons.
- 4. MT:
My theory is that the world rotates around the sun different in
the months. Like the Earth rotatoes closer to the in those months.
(MD)
- 5. MT:
I'm not totally sure of why this happens, but the Earth takes
one year to rotate around the sun. During the summer months when it is
warmer. the Earth is closer to the sun than it is during the winter months
when it is cooler. (AF)
- 6. MT:
I think that the weather changes because the Earth is further
away from the Sun than usual. (SB)
- 30. MT:
I don't know why but my guess is when it rotates it gets
closer to the sun and the seasons change. (SJ)
- 31. MT:
I think that it is warm in the summar because the suns rays
hit the earth more directly during those months. In the winter the earth is
at a point on its axis where it is farther away from the sun then in the
summar. The changing of the weather is an extrodenary thing.
(KH)
- 32. MT:
I think it is hot in the summer because the sun comes closer
to the sun, and the rays hits the earth and the it just gets hot. Its cold
in the winter because we are not close to the sunor we have the moister
from places that had bad weather. (ES)
- 33. MT:
The meason why is when the sun shines toward the Northern
Hemisphere they have sunshine which is the summer season while the
Southern Hemisphere has winter, but when the Earth's axis tilts and turns
to the Southern Hemisphere the sun shines toward the Southern Hemsphere and
it will have summer seasons and the Northern Hemisphere will have winter.
That is why the seasons change. (LW)
- 34. MT:
I think that the reason why is because, the earth is tilted so
when North America hits a certain spot it changes seasons.
(TF)
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Next, after a couple of days, we tried to synthesize the students'
responses into four main theories. This was very helpful in getting the
students to begin talking about theories rather than their own
opinions.
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- 46. C:
Hi this is Tony. I think you've all done a really great job at
explaining your own individual theories about why the seasons change. Now
we need to take it to the next step. Does anyone need MORE INFORMATION? I
think this is an important step in trying to understand the reasons for
why the seasons change. So, I would like to see more use of the different
categories that we can use with CSILE. A theory needs to be more than
simply opinion. Sometimes it helps to clarify and find out more
information.
As I look at your theories, I see a lot of common thoughts. Do you? For
instance, some people have spoken about the Earth's axis, others have
spoken about rotation, others have spoken about how close the earth is to
the sun...let's SYNTHESIZE all these into maybe 3-5 competing theories.
Then we can discuss them further.
Maybe someone can do this for the class? That would be great!
- 46. WWHL:
I would like to try and sum some things up for us and then we
can go on. I've looked at the database for "Reasons for the Seasons" and
it seems to me that there are essentially 4-5 major theories. Here they
are in no particular order..
- The Earth rotates around the Sun in one year. There are times when the
earth is close to the sun (summer) and times when the earth is far from the
sun (winter). We'll call this the: Orbit Around the Sun
Theory.
- The earth rotates around itself. Sometimes the place you are standing
on earth faces the sun (summer) and other times you are standing on the
side of the earth where the sun isn't shining (winter). We'll call this
the: Earth's Rotation Theory.
- The earth tilts on its axis. The part of earth tilted toward
(summer) the Sun gets warmer than the side tilted away (winter) gets
colder. We'll call this the: Axis Theory.
- The Greek myth of Persophone provides an explanation. Basically, Hades
allowed Persephone to stay on earth for 6 months (summer) and in the
underworld for 6 months (winter). We'll call this the: Greek Myth
Theory.
.......................................................Tony (JJ)
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As a concluding activity, we asked the students to use the
graphics tool in CSILE. Notice in this example, there's a fairly good
graphical depiction of the correct axis tilt during summer and winter in
the northern hemisphere. |
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In this graphic we see a drawing which depicts a common
misconception concerning the seasons -- that the Earth is closer to the Sun
in summer than in winter. |
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