For a few days this week, you might have heard our newsreaders offering information about signs of radiation leaked from the Japanese reactor showing up in Massachusetts rainwater. On Monday, CNN called in MIT Professor Jim Walsh to reassure the viewers. No need to “freak out,” he said, and giving his ultimate imprimatur, he added later, “If I had a glass right now, I’d drink the water.” Okay, I thought. But thinking back over Carol Costello’s interview, I realized that something she had said earlier concerned me even more. In trying to contemplate what it might mean if radiation could travel to the U.S., Ms. Costello revealed an interesting, and, I think, common misconception about the water cycle and the earth: “I wouldn’t think it could travel that far.” Having been so stumped, Ms. Costello lost her objectivity later in the broadcast and asked the meteorologist: “Didn't your parents used to tell you God was bowling and that was the reason for the thunder?” I worry about us if we are losing track of what we do know about the universe. We can talk about “theories” another day.
Costello’s confusion about the water cycle probably serves as a good surrogate for our general student population and helps us to understand our mediocre results in science. I thought about a few things we should and probably do know to help ourselves make sense of the news about radiation: The earth orbits, and the earth turns. Our planet takes about a year to orbit the sun; meanwhile, the earth spins once a day. These facts are important because, among other things, they help us to understand that the water cycle is also affected by the movement of water around the earth while it’s moving. Yes, Japan seems very far away, but with all this movement of the planet, it’s entirely possible that some molecules of water or units of radiation could reach New England a day after their emission in Fukushima.
Now here’s the beginning of a problem. Most drawings and even many animations of the water cycle do not show the earth’s movement. Here is one for kids from the EPA (nice depiction of the cycle; no earth movement); here’s another from the EPA with jazzier Flash—it does show clouds moving and states that the earth is moving, but it doesn’t show it, and the background doesn’t move. The Euro Science Center its own version that might help us to remember that the earth moves, but it does not illustrate the motion. The so-called “Cool Water Cycle Song” gets a little closer, and Bill Nye, Science Guy offers one of the more clear illustrations. But still, you could miss it in all of these if you focus only on the names of the parts of the cycle. There is a research question lurking here for someone regarding the efficacy of teaching tools. The real work on best practices is yet to be done. Our perception of how things work that could be assisted by more carefully developed art. What is beautiful or attractive is not always thorough, and our thinking is often at risk due to tunnel vision.
When I was in school our science teachers made a point of reminding us that the water cycle occurred on a moving planet. We need to ask critical questions about how much to tell whenever we teach. Instructional minutes are precious, and students are not all the same person. Ms. Costello, and perhaps many current students, might be forgiven for being confused about how substances migrate. Still, we might hope for more from our journalists. Our system focuses on the water cycle by itself. I’m not sure that the cycle is always integrated with other knowledge about the earth. How many teachers look more comprehensively at the movement of water by means of The Water Cycle Game, a teacher resource, which you can find archived (and no longer supported) at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)?
Care to explore more? Here are some links from Cornell University’s astronomy department about how fast the earth spins:
what makes it spin:
and how long it takes to orbit the sun:
It is not easy to educate thoroughly. There is always some art involved.
No comments:
Post a Comment