Effectiveness of the Planetarium Show and Evaluation of Changes in Children's Ideas

Abstract

The aim of this study is to evaluate the educational effectiveness of the planetarium show, which has seldom been attempted in Japan. For this purpose, we attempt to (1) assess children's understanding of the sun's light before the planetarium show, (2) analyze how their ideas have changed one week and then about four months afterwards, and (3) point out some problems in the planetarium show. We found that (1) third graders who have not studied the sun's light in school have a variety of ideas about the sun, (2) 82% of the children change their ideas by watching the show (some of changes were mistaken), and (3) 13% of the children whose ideas changed after watching the show kept their ideas for about four months. Based on these results, we make proposals to improve the planetarium show.