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Extant literature has preliminarily confirmed the potential benefits of holographic projections for educational purposes. Yet, students' experiences of learning by holographic projection have rarely been addressed. The main purpose of this study was therefore to explore students' conceptions of and approaches to learning by holographic projection. A holographic projection system was devised to assist students in learning the concept of lunar phases. This study also investigated the relationships between students' conceptions and approaches, and determined if there were any variations based on students' learning gains. Phenomenographic analysis was adopted to analyze 30 university students from Taiwan, and a multiple-choice conceptual test was conducted to assess their learning achievements. The main findings indicated that students with conceptions of learning by holographic projection as increasing the presence of a scene or mapping 2D images to 3D structures tended to adopt surface approaches, such as only observing the changes presented in the holographic projection, repetitively operating the system functions without intended purposes, or simply following the instruction guidelines to meet the minimal requirements. However, this study unexpectedly found that students who utilized surface approaches had significantly higher learning gains on the conceptual test than their counterparts did.

We present the development and validation of a new assessment tool, the Moon Phases Concept Inventory for Middle School (MPCI-MS), a concept inventory about the phases of the moon targeting students aged 10 to 14 years old. Items in the questionnaire are based on a careful examination of the concept domain of phases of the moon, ideas and concepts necessary to understand the mechanism of lunar phases, as chosen by a panel of seven professional astronomers. Questions and multiple-choice answers were tested for readability with 5th grade students, tested for reading level, and submitted to a second panel of professional astronomers to check for face and construct validity of the items. The MPCI-MS was tested with N = 296 students from grade 5 in elementary school to secondary 2 (M[subscript age] = 10.2 to 14.1). One item about global perspective on lunar phases had to be removed because of poor psychometric properties. The revised MPCI-MS has a post-test Cronbach alpha score of 0.786 and good overall psychometric properties: the mean difficulty index for the MPCI-MS pretest is 0.47, and 0.61 for the post-test; mean point-biserial correlation (post-test) is 0.376. Test-retest without instruction at one-week interval showed high test-retest reliability [M[subscript pre] = 13.696, M[subscript post] = 14.523; t(45) = 1.315, p = 0.192]. We conclude that the MPCI-MS is a reliable and valid instrument that can discriminate between novices and experts, and can be used to assess 10 to 14 year-old students' learning gains on the topic of lunar phases. The final version of MPCI-MS is a 19-item instrument, including two new questions about eclipses, that takes between 15 and 25 min for students to complete.

This paper describes a method to demonstrate that the plane of the lunar orbit around Earth and the plane of the ecliptic (the plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun) are inclined with respect to each other, and to present a method for measuring the angle of the inclination. The angle between the diameter of the Moon's orbit when the Moon passes through the local meridian and the diameter of Earth's orbit when the Sun passes through the local meridian is the angle between the two planes. The paths of the Sun and the Moon as they appear when the Sun is at the local meridian were defined and the angle between them was measured as 42.5° by an observer. Then, these measurements were used to determine the inclination and to calculate an approximate value for the angle between the plane of the lunar orbit and plane of the ecliptic, which was found to be approximately 4.5°. This angle could be closely approximated with a simple method that everyone could use realistically and provide an answer for the question, "Since there is a full Moon every month as well as a new Moon, why is there no lunar eclipse and solar eclipse every month?"

Teaching and learning situations nowadays typically build on richly illustrated material or multimodal presentations. Under these circumstances, the transparency of images and models used for explaining various phenomena becomes central. The present study deals with 20 Swedish children, 9-12 years old, discussing an illustration meant to show the cause of the different appearances of the Moon in the sky. The students' task was to place eight numbered moon phases in the lunar orbit in the image. The illustration in question was chosen (a) because it was of a kind frequently used to explain the lunar phases and (b) because the phenomenon is known to be difficult to understand for students of all ages. The analysis leans on historical and sociocultural approaches as well as on multimodal semiotics. The results show that a majority of students were able to make sense of the most central features of the illustration but that very few spontaneously reasoned in a way that could be interpreted as the intended meaning-making of the cause of the lunar phases. The results also indicate that the simultaneous adoption of two perspectives necessary for understanding the phenomenon was a stumbling block for most of the students.

This article describes a unit in which students investigate total solar eclipses, such as the one coming August 21, from several perspectives. It incorporates mathematical thinking and aligns with the "Next Generation Science Standard." This article refers to physical, virtual, and mathematical modeling. Various models and perspectives are used to help students visualize the solar eclipse.

Empirical studies have reported difficulties, confusion, and lack of understanding among students at all levels of instruction regarding the issue of weight--gravitation--weighing relationships. This study examined the impact of a new conceptual framework of weight, on a small group of 7th-grade students (N?=?14) in a middle school in Israel. This conceptual framework, which defined weight operationally as weighing results, implied a natural distinction between weight and gravitational force, in contrast to the gravitational definition of weight, which identifies these two concepts. The new framework not only better fits modern scientific epistemology but also matches the common intuitive conception of weight as representing the heaviness of objects. This coherence promises innovative teaching leading to easier and more meaningful learning. The applied pedagogical method included a historical excurse and knowledge mediation through a discursive mode of teaching using images of different environments (Thinking Journey). The collected data of students' knowledge were structured in terms of scheme-facets of knowledge, which allowed qualitative evaluation of knowledge changes due to the instruction. We found that discussion of the lunar environment led students to appreciate the universality of gravitational attraction and to develop operational meaning for the up-down direction. Considering the environment of a coasting satellite encouraged students to distinguish between the gravitational force causing the orbiting around the Earth, and weight as the force that objects naturally exert on their support. It appeared that falling served as an anchoring concept leading students to the operational definition of weight.

This research studied a group of three preservice elementary teachers creating a narrated stop-motion animation (Slowmation) from start to finish in 3?hours to explain the challenging concept of "phases of the moon" to elementary school children. The research questions investigated the preservice teachers' learning before and after the construction as well as how the preservice teachers designed the slowmation as a teaching resource. Data collection involved individual interviews immediately before and after the construction in conjunction with analysis of video and audio data collected during the construction process. Before the animation construction, the participants had little understanding of the causes of moon phases and one held an alternative conception. After creating the slowmation all three preservice teachers demonstrated more "elements" of the concept and appeared to resolve an alternative conception. There are two findings from this research: (i) creating a slowmation enabled the preservice teachers to develop more elements to contribute to their understanding of moon phases; (ii) the design of the slowmation was based on breaking the concept into a sequence of sub-concepts that were represented digitally. Designing a digital teaching resource such as a slowmation to explain a concept involves preservice teachers breaking a concept down into coherent parts or "chunks" and representing the concept in multiple ways. This can be done within a science method class and is also a good way for the them to negotiate meanings about a difficult concept.

This study documented the means by which STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) educators experienced the mathematics and science associated with understanding lunar phenomena. The article reports how well STEM education graduate students interacted with projectbased materials as they engaged in interdisciplinary teaching and learning. Research questions pursued were: (a) How will students' spatial mathematics and scientific understandings develop as they engage in a contextualized, technology-rich, project-based environment? and (b) How will the students' group projects affect their understanding of lunar related concepts? A mixedmethods approach was used with this semester-long design study to expose how focused project work facilitated spatial understanding. Significant gains were made on lunar-related concepts that had been previously resistant to conceptual change (lunar motion and effect of lunar phase with location change). An implication of this study suggests that technologies (i.e., Stellarium, online blogging with Australia, and Geometer's Sketchpad) facilitated students' project progress, aided students' understanding of how perspective matters in terms of Earthly sky viewing, and deepened students' understanding on domains that included spatial reasoning.

This study investigated the effect on children's science understanding of Internet-based instruction in which children from around the world in grades 4 to 8 observed the Moon for several weeks and then shared their lunar data internationally to find global patterns in the Moon's behavior. Students in two American and one Australian class took the Comprehensive Moon Phases Assessment as a pre- and post-test. Instruction in the three classes shared some common characteristics such as exchanging data internationally and focusing on finding global patterns in the Moon's behavior. The results showed that overall and in two of the three classes the students' understanding of lunar phases improved significantly. The international exchange of lunar observation reports was effective, although the instruction in each classroom was under the teacher's control and thus varied from place to place. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

This article analyses the symbolic meaning of the Moon in two "bande dessinee" books from the Tintin series, Herge's "Destination Moon" ("Objectif Lune," 1953) and its sequel "Explorers on the Moon" ("On a Marche sur la Lune," 1954). It argues that these two volumes stand out in the series for their graphic, narrative and philosophical emphasis on both intellectual achievement and physical death. The Moon, as a goal of modern science and a traditional artistic symbol, is made to celebrate the human mind. But Herge also makes it a dangerous no man's land, where human beings are made to understand the limitations of their physical abilities. The Moon emphasises the distortion between human dreams of grandeur and the concrete impossibility of their realisation, and the threats they pose to corporeality. As a result, the article suggests that the Moon trip can be seen as a modern re-enactment of the mythological journey to Hell, as the works of the human mind are constantly thwarted by the risk of physical death.

This study investigated the effect of non-traditional guided inquiry instruction on middle school students' conceptual understandings of lunar concepts. Multiple data sources were used to describe participants' conceptions of lunar phases and their cause, including drawings, interviews, and a lunar shapes card sort. The data were analyzed via a constant comparative method to produce profiles of each participant's conceptual understandings and nonparametric tests also were used. Results revealed very positive performance for observable moon phases and patterns of change, as well as the cause of moon phases. Results indicated that significantly more participants shifted from drawing nonscientific shapes on the pretest to drawing scientific shapes on the post-test. Results for the drawings of moon phase sequences were similar in that significantly more participants shifted from drawing alternative waxing and waning sequences on the pretest to drawing scientific sequences on the post-test. Also, significantly more participants shifted from alternative understanding of the cause of the moon phases on the pretest to scientific understanding on the post-test. Implications of these findings and recommendations for further research are provided.

Students' difficulties with accurately conceptualizing the relationships among the Earth, Moon, and Sun are well documented. Any teacher who has seen the film "A Private Universe" (Schneps and Sadler 1988) will remember the challenge the interviewees experienced when trying to explain their understanding of this phenomenon. This paper describes a strategy to help students develop a model of the Earth/Moon relationship that is correct both in terms of the scale sizes and the distances between them and extends previous work present in "Science Scope" (see Wallace, Dickerson, and Hopkins 2007: Riddle 2006a). (Contains 4 figures.)

Educators can connect their students internationally in meaningful activities that address multiple teaching standards that are of concern to educators, parents, and the public worldwide. In this article, the authors describe a project wherein Australian Year 7 students made an "Edible Lunar Vehicle" (ELV) together with U.S. college students. The project focused on several key 6-8 benchmarks that are outlined in "Standards for Technological Literacy: Content for the Study of Technology (STL)." A table outlining the standards and benchmarks, and how each was addressed during this project is presented. (Contains 1 table.)

An important goal of the current reform movement in science education is to promote scientific literacy in the United States, and scientific inquiry is at its heart. However, the National Science Education Standards clearly indicate that to promote inquiry, more emphasis should be placed on "science as argument and explanation" rather than on science as "explanation and argument." They also call for scientific argumentation to play a more central role in the teaching and learning of science (NRC 1996). To that end, this article describes a multiple-day, inquiry-based lesson about the phases of the Moon that engages students in scientific research and argumentation. (Contains 6 figures.)

Using a science lesson on lunar phases as a basis for discussion, the author suggests ways that teachers can provide literacy instruction on multimodal texts in science. The author asserts that multiple representations are central to the discipline of science, and that students require explicit instruction on how to critically read, evaluate, and design a variety of scientific representations of their own. As students learn to read and write multimodal texts in science and other content areas, they will not only understand each discipline more fully, but also they may be better prepared to read and design multimodal texts in today's digital age in which multiple representations are omnipresent in various communicative mediums. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper is a report of the Australian segment of an international multi-campus project centred on improving understanding of the Moon's phases for preservice teachers. Instructional strategies adopted for a science education subject enabled Australian participants to make extended observations of the Moon's phases and keep observational data records which were shared in asynchronous on-line discussion with fellow preservice teachers in the USA. An adaptation of an online inventory of lunar phases was completed by participants before and after the observation cycle. The analysis of inventory data showed that although there was statistically significant overall improvement in mean scores for the inventory this could be accounted for by statistically significant increases in only some conceptual domains related to the lunar phases. In addition, the findings indicate that some concepts involved in having a deep understanding of lunar phases can be improved by instruction however, misunderstandings of other concepts involved in lunar phases are difficult to change and may require increased attention to developing students' visual-spatial capabilities.

In conjunction with the August 8, 2007 launch of STS-118, the International Technology Education Association (ITEA) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) developed and recently debuted curricular units for Grades K-12 on Space Exploration, known as STS-118 Design Challenges. The units focus on aspects of the themes that NASA Engineers and Scientists--as well as future generations of explorers--must consider, such as Energy and Power, Transportation, and Lunar Plant Growth Chambers. These challenges are available for elementary, middle, and high school and revolve around a lunar plant growth chamber to help supplement the diet of astronauts while living and working on the moon, as well as provide as sense of "home." The Design Challenges include lessons, student and teacher resources, assessments, and materials lists. Moreover, the units integrate with the ITEA model program for technological literacy known as Engineering byDesign[TM]. Any motivated science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) teacher or team of teachers can implement this design challenge in the classroom. This article provides an in-depth description of the recently released STS-118 Design Challenges and presents specific suggestions for teacher preparation for this design challenge, as well as some general suggestions organized by (but not limited to) grade band.

Suggestions and tips for novice and experienced eclipse watchers are provided. Discussed are the mysterious shadow bands that occur just minutes before an eclipse. Directions for building a deluxe pinhole projector for observing the eclipse, a reading list, and a glossary of related terms are included. (KR)