On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 12:18 AM, Alan Kay <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:alan.nemo@yahoo.com">alan.nemo@yahoo.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div><div style="color:#000;background-color:#fff;font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:14pt"><div>I gave a talk on how they did this in the Kyoto Prize lecture followups in San Diego in 2005. Aristarchus was one of several key figures.</div>
<div><br><span></span></div><div><span>The shame of it is that for both math and science learning, the important heuristic of trying to identify all the possible cases for a result is never encountered by the children (or most adults) who have read about
Eratosthenes.</span></div><div></div><div><blockquote style="border-left:2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255);margin-left:5px;padding-left:5px"><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:14pt"><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt">
<font face="Arial" size="2"><b><span style="font-weight:bold"></span></b></font></div></div></blockquote></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div><div>Early in the <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-124161889929978086">Alan's talk</a> (~34:30, sound terrible, content good) Alan talks about a survey done at the Harvard commencement ceremonies where students, teachers and faculty were asked:</div>
<div><ol><li>Why are there seasons?</li><li>What causes the phases of the moon?</li></ol><div>Most got it wrong (usually along the lines of "the seasons are caused by the distance from the earth to the Sun").</div>
<div>Alan tried this at UCLA and got the same results (about 95% got had severe misconceptions about one or both of them). </div><div>He then asked the follow up to question #1; When its Summer in the Northern hemisphere, what season is it in the Southern Hemisphere? They all got that right, then after about 20 seconds the contradiction hit them </div>
<div><br></div><div>Then he asks, why is it, that they didn't come up with this contradiction when they were asked the first question?</div></div><div><br></div><div>So what can we do about this, and how can we help kids look for all possible causes and find counter examples?</div>
</div><div><br></div><div>I have some ideas which I will share later, what are yours?<br></div><div><br></div><div>Stephen</div><div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div><div style="color:#000;background-color:#fff;font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:14pt"><div><blockquote style="border-left:2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255);margin-left:5px;padding-left:5px"><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:14pt">
<div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><font face="Arial" size="2"><b><span style="font-weight:bold">From:</span></b> Steve Thomas <<a href="mailto:sthomas1@gosargon.com" target="_blank">sthomas1@gosargon.com</a>><br>
<b><span style="font-weight:bold">To:</span></b> <a href="mailto:naturalmath@googlegroups.com" target="_blank">naturalmath@googlegroups.com</a>; iaep <<a href="mailto:iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org" target="_blank">iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org</a>>; squeakland <<a href="mailto:squeakland@squeakland.org" target="_blank">squeakland@squeakland.org</a>><br>
<b><span style="font-weight:bold">Sent:</span></b> Wednesday, September 28, 2011 9:06 PM<br><b><span style="font-weight:bold">Subject:</span></b> [NaturalMath] KIds from around the world measuring the Circumference of the
Earth<br></font><br><div><div><div></div><div class="h5"><span style="font-family:Times;font-size:medium"><div style="border-bottom-width:0px;border-color:initial;border-left-width:0px;border-right-width:0px;border-top-width:0px;font-family:inherit;font-size:12px;font-style:inherit;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-top:0px;vertical-align:baseline">
<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">The <a rel="nofollow" href="http://ciese.org/curriculum/noonday/" target="_blank">Goal of the Noon Day Project</a> is to have students measure the circumference of the earth using a method that was first used by Eratosthenes over 2000 years ago.</div>
</div><div style="border-bottom-width:0px;border-color:initial;border-left-width:0px;border-right-width:0px;border-top-width:0px;font-family:inherit;font-size:12px;font-style:inherit;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-top:0px;vertical-align:baseline">
<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">Students at various sites around the world will measure shadows cast by a meter stick and compare their results.</div></div><div style="border-bottom-width:0px;border-color:initial;border-left-width:0px;border-right-width:0px;border-top-width:0px;font-family:inherit;font-size:12px;font-style:inherit;margin-bottom:1.5em;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-top:0px;vertical-align:baseline">
<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">From this data students will be able to calculate the circumference of the earth. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://ciese.org/curriculum/noonday/" target="_blank">Click here to get to their site and register.</a></div>
<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><br></div><div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">Watch the <a rel="nofollow" href="http://youtu.be/0JHEqBLG650" target="_blank">Carl Sagan video,</a> its a treat.</div>
<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><br></div><div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">Thanks to Ihor Charischak for pointing this out.</div>
<div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px"><br></div><div style="margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-left:0px">Stephen</div></div></span></div></div>
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