EDUC 6470 Experimental Instructional Plans

Possible topics for the lesson

Explaining the seasons

Sadler et. al, Wikipedia's misconceptions page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_misconceptions#Astronomy ), and many educators have cited the power per area argument for the seasons, due to the tilt of Earth in its orbit. Few discussions of the orbital causes of the seasons list length of day, and none I've seen help students see the seasons as a cumulative effect rather than an instantaneous one, thus explaining why January, when the sun is higher in the US, is usually colder than December, or early August is usually hotter than mid-June.

Let's do some group work with a numerical model to compare the power/area-effect and the length-of-day effect. We'll see that the problem isn't too simple an inquiry, since there are different ways to tease apart the two effects, none quite satisfactory to me.