Using A Digital Planetarium For Teaching Seasons To Undergraduates

Computer-generated simulations and visualizations in digital planetariums have the potential to bridge the comprehension gap in astronomy education. Concepts involving three-dimensional spatial relationships can be difficult for the layperson to understand, since much of the traditional teaching materials used in astronomy education remain two-dimensional in nature. We study the student performance after viewing visualizations in an immersive theater and in non-immersive classrooms for the topic of seasons in an introductory undergraduate astronomy course. Using weekly multiple-choice quizzes to gauge student learning, comparison of curriculum tests taken immediately after instruction and pre-instruction quizzes show a significant difference in the results of students who viewed visualizations in the planetarium versus their counterparts who viewed non-immersive content in their classrooms, and those in the control group that saw no visualizations whatsoever. These results suggest that the immersive visuals help by freeing up cognitive resources that can be devoted to learning, while visualizations shown in the classroom may be an intrinsically inferior experience for students

Immersive Planetarium Visualizations For Teaching Solar System Moon Concepts To Undergraduates

Digital video fulldome has long been heralded as a revolutionary educational technology; yet the discipline-based astronomy education research literature showing planetarium effectiveness has been sparse. In order to help understand to what extent immersion impacts learning and the effect of the “narrative journey” model of presentation, we conducted a pre- and post-test effectiveness study of lectures on moon systems in the Solar System presented to 781 college undergraduates under immersive and non-immersive treatment conditions. Although all students showed some learning gains immediately after instruction, those who saw presentations in an immersive fulldome planetarium showed the greatest retention, compared to control classes that witnessed the same lecture and visuals on a flat screen in their regular classroom, and students that saw no interactive visuals. Because the same instructors, presentation visuals, and instructional outline were used for both the classroom and dome instruction using the virtual environment, the results suggest that the large display and wide field-of-view, two elements unique to the dome, resulted in greater attention, and were primarily responsible for the greater gains

Visuospatial astronomy education in immersive digital planetariums

Even simple concepts in astronomy are notoriously difficult for the general public to understand. Many ideas involve three-dimensional (3D) spatial relationships among astronomical objects. However much of the traditional teaching materials used in astronomy education are two-dimensional (2D) in nature, while studies show that visualising mental rotations and perspective changes can be difficult for many. The simplifications that occur when explaining one phenomenon may lead to new misconceptions in other concepts. Properly constructed 3D simulations can provide students with the multiple perspectives necessary for understanding. As a venue for virtual astronomical environments, the new class of digital video planetariums that are appearing in museums and science centres have the potential to bridge the comprehension gap in astronomy learning. We describe a research project which aims to evaluate the effectiveness of visualisations in both immersive and non-immersive settings, by using freshmen undergraduate students from a four-year college. The retention of students over the course of a semester for this study means that student misconceptions can be tracked and recorded weekly via curriculum tests

Digital Planetariums and Immersive Visualizations for Astronomy Education

Modern “fulldome” video digital planetariums combine immersive projection that facilitate the understanding of relationships involving wide spatial angles, while 3D virtual environments facilitate learning of spatial relationships by allowing models and scenes to be viewed from multiple frames of reference. We report on an efficacy study of the use of digital planetariums for learning the astronomical topic of the seasons. Comparison of curriculum tests taken immediately after instruction versus pre-instruction show significant gains for students who viewed visualizations in the immersive dome, versus their counterparts who viewed non-immersive content and those in the control group that saw no visualizations. The greater gains in learning in the digital planetarium can be traced not only to its ability to show wide-angle phenomena and the benefits accorded by the simulation software, but also the lower quality visual experience for students viewing the non-immersive versions of the lectures

Immersive Planetarium Visualizations For Teaching Solar System Moon Concepts To Undergraduates

Digital video fulldome has long been heralded as a revolutionary educational technology; yet the discipline-based astronomy education research literature showing planetarium effectiveness has been sparse. In order to help understand to what extent immersion impacts learning and the effect of the “narrative journey” model of presentation, we conducted a pre- and post-test effectiveness study of lectures on moon systems in the Solar System presented to 781 college undergraduates under immersive and non-immersive treatment conditions. Although all students showed some learning gains immediately after instruction, those who saw presentations in an immersive fulldome planetarium showed the greatest retention, compared to control classes that witnessed the same lecture and visuals on a flat screen in their regular classroom, and students that saw no interactive visuals. Because the same instructors, presentation visuals, and instructional outline were used for both the classroom and dome instruction using the virtual environment, the results suggest that the large display and wide field-of-view, two elements unique to the dome, resulted in greater attention, and were primarily responsible for the greater gains

Student Ideas about Kepler’s Laws and Planetary Orbital Motions

We present the analysis of oral interviews with 112 undergraduate nonmajor students during the first week of a General Education Introduction to Astronomy class before they had received any instruction. The students were asked questions relating to Kepler’s three Laws of Motion, as well as their understanding of what keeps planets in orbit around the Sun. The most common misconception found in about three-quarters of the interviews is the belief that planetary orbits about the Sun are highly elliptical. Less common ideas include a mix of circular and highly elliptical orbital shapes. Many students have conceptions consistent with the Kepler’s Second and Third Laws of Motion, and the ease with which these models are adopted by students may suggest some ways to teach these concepts via analogy. The types of ideas about orbital shapes and orbital behavior may originate in common depictions of orbits often seen in print and on the Internet

Learning about the scale of the solar system using digital planetarium visualizations

We studied the use of a digital planetarium for teaching relative distances and sizes in introductory undergraduate astronomy classes. Inspired in part by the classic short film The Powers of Ten and large physical scale models of the Solar System that can be explored on foot, we created lectures using virtual versions of these two pedagogical approaches for classes that saw either an immersive treatment in the planetarium or a non-immersive version in the regular classroom (with N = 973 students participating in total). Students who visited the planetarium had not only the greatest learning gains, but their performance increased with time, whereas students who saw the same visuals projected onto a flat display in their classroom showed less retention over time. The gains seen in the students who visited the planetarium reveal that this medium is a powerful tool for visualizing scale over multiple orders of magnitude. However the modest gains for the students in the regular classroom also show the utility of these visualization approaches for the broader category of classroom physics simulations

Optimal Forcing Patterns for Coupled Models of ENSO

The optimal forcing patterns for El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) are examined for a hierarchy of hybrid coupled models using generalized stability theory. Specifically two cases are considered: one where the forcing is stochastic in time, and one where the forcing is time independent. The optimal forcing patterns in these two cases are described by the stochastic optimals and forcing singular vectors, respectively. The spectrum of stochastic optimals for each model was found to be dominated by a single pattern. In addition, the dominant stochastic optimal structure is remarkably similar to the forcing singular vector, and to the dominant singular vectors computed in a previous related study using a subset of the same models. This suggests that irrespective of whether the forcing is in the form of an impulse, is time invariant, or is stochastic in nature, the optimal excitation for the eigenmode that describes ENSO in each model is the same. The optimal forcing pattern, however, does vary from model to model, and depends on air–sea interaction processes.Estimates of the stochastic component of forcing were obtained from atmospheric analyses and the projection of the dominant optimal forcing pattern from each model onto this component of the forcing was computed. It was found that each of the optimal forcing patterns identified may be present in nature and all are equally likely. The existence of a dominant optimal forcing pattern is explored in terms of the effective dimension of the coupled system using the method of balanced truncation, and was found to be O(1) for the models used here. The implications of this important result for ENSO prediction and predictability are discussed