Understanding the Diurnal Motion of Stars by Viewing Celestial Motion via Known Ground Images

Abstract

This study examined whether celestial motion material with a ground image known to students promoted understanding of the diurnal motion of stars by comparing it to two other types of materials: a material with ground images unknown to students and a material without any ground image. Test performance and subjective evaluation after learning between the three fourth grade classes, in which students took a lesson on the diurnal motion of stars with one of the three types of materials, were compared. As a result, the test performance revealed that the known ground image material improved students’ understanding of the diurnal motion of stars more than the other two types of materials. Subjective evaluation also showed the effectiveness of the known ground image material. In addition, we inferred the reason for the effectiveness by interviewing the students about what they had learned from the known ground image material.