Periodicity and change: Talking about time inside the planetarium dome

Abstract

Time is a central concept for astronomy, yet how it is communicated in educational contexts has received insufficient attention in the literature. This study explores how time-related concepts are communicated in the planetarium, by analyzing 34 different planetarium sessions held in a diversity of Portuguese institutions. Sessions were video and audio recorded. From 26 hrs of recordings, 163 excerpts related to time were identified. Studying instances of actual events with a naturalistic approach informed by ethnomethodology allowed for the identification of ordinary methods and strategies that are used by guides to teach time-related concepts. This study details these methods and strategies, and how guides take advantage of the characteristics of the planetarium. Our analysis reveals that change over time and periodicity are the most recurrent time-related themes in planetarium sessions. The majority of the excerpts relate to the rotation and revolution of the Earth, but time-related aspects of the revolution of other celestial bodies are also present in the data. We found that guides use strategies grounded both in geocentric and allocentric (view from space) perspectives when communicating about time, and we highlight how an allocentric perspective can be demonstrated without sophisticated, immersive simulations. Moreover, we found that strategies bringing time to the personal level, for instance by using birthdays and the age of members of the public as baseline measures, and other engagement techniques, are widely used. Findings have important implications for research and communication about time in practice.

The research trends and contributions of science education during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A narrative systematic literature review of publications in selected journals

“…The branches of earth and space science education articles published in SE , JRST and IJSE during the COVID‐19 pandemic (2020–2021) include: indigenous status positively affected for earth/space learning (Cooper & Berry, 2020); geoscience curricula (Donaldson et al., 2020; King, Gorfinkiel, et al., 2021; Corrochano & Gómez‐Gonçalves, 2020; Remmen & Frøyland, 2020; Atasoy et al., 2020); misconceptions about geology (Guffey & Slater, 2020); social‐institutional of science in the Earth, Sun and Moon unit (Akbayrak & Kaya, 2020); climate change (Young et al., 2020; Sezen‐barrie & Marbach‐ad, 2021; Carman et al., 2021; Nyarko et al., 2021; Zummo, 2020), solar system learning progressions (Plummer et al., 2020); a discussion about time within periodicity in the planetarium dome (Marques et al., 2021); and a multiple case study approach to computer simulation classroom orchestration of heat transfer, Earth, and the sun (Magana et al., 2021). This study shows that the branch of earth/space science contributed the least amount of papers compared to the other branches.…”

A guided tour in the Geophysical and Astronomical Observatory of the University of Coimbra: setting-specific practices in an informal educational environment

“…Informal education in astronomy is conducted in different settings and involves diverse stakeholders, but the area is not well organized or integrated (Marques and Freitas 2016); few studies concern guided interactions (Stroud, Groome, Connolly, and Sheppard 2007), for instance in planetaria, observatories, or astronomy-related museums and science centers. In this group we can also include Marques, Carlin and Moutinho (2020) and Carlin, Marques and Moutinho (2021), who investigate the interaction of an astronomer guide with a child while observing the Sun with a telescope, and Marques, Carlin and Moutinho (2021), who explore the methods and strategies a group of guides use to communicate about astronomical time in planetarium sessions. Apart from those, most studies have their focus elsewhere.…”