[meteorite-list] Sigh

[lebofsky at lpl.arizona.edu]

Hi All:

In mid-Auguest there will be a conference held in Maryland: The Great
Planet Debate: Science as Process.

I will be there and will be presenting as a scientist and science
educator. I hope to write this up as an article for the November issue of
Meteorite.

Dispite the IAU, this is not a dead issue.

Larry

On Mon, June 23, 2008 11:25 am, Darren Garrison wrote:
> "Liam's teacher Rachel Kaplan said, "I was really sad when Pluto was
> declassified as a planet, because I've studied astrology for a number of
> years.""
>
> http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,370213,00.html
>
>
> Pluto's Identity Crisis Hits Classrooms, Bookstores
>
>
> Pluto was once a planet. Then a dwarf planet. And, as of this month, a
> plutoid.
>
> The fall from grace has teachers, parents and educational publishers
> struggling to keep up, while kids remain loyal to their favorite, the
> ninth planet. Underscore "planet."
>
>
> On June 11, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) announced Pluto
> should now be called a "plutoid," two years after the organization voted
> to demote Pluto to "dwarf planet" status.
>
>
> Meanwhile, many kids are nearly certain Pluto is still a planet.
>
>
> "I think it's a planet. But me and my friends, we talk about it sometimes
> and we go back and forth," said Natalie Browning, 9, sitting in a park in
> Manhattan
> with her family.
>
> "Right now, I'm not 100 percent. I'm just 75 percent" sure that Pluto is
> a planet, she added.
>
> Natalie's mom, Bobbie Browning, said, "You've got kids with textbooks
> saying that Pluto is part of the solar system and a planet, and teachers
> have to say it isn't [a planet]."
>
> Science teachers and publishers already worked to update their resources
> to read "dwarf planet." And now, boom, that category is out of favor among
> astronomers.
>
> "Students who have just learned about the concept of dwarf planets must
> now be taught the new concept of 'plutoid,'" said Janis Milman, who
> teaches Earth Science at Thomas Stone High School in Maryland. "This will
> lead to confusion in the classroom and resistance to learning the new
> terms, because the students will question, 'Why learn something that might
> change again in a year or so?'"
>
> A cursory survey at a large chain bookstore here revealed three out of
> four books published in 2006 or later were updated, with Pluto designated
> as a dwarf planet and the solar system said to include just eight planets.
>
>
> Chronicles of Pluto
>
>
> Discovered in 1930 by Clyde W. Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory in Arizona,
> Pluto
> was always considered an oddball of sorts, with its tiny size (smaller
> than some moons) and eccentric orbit.
>
> During its 248-year trek around the sun, Pluto swings from its farthest
> point from the sun at 49.5 astronomical units (AU) to as close as 29 AU
> from the sun.
>
> One AU is the average distance between the Earth and sun, or about 93
> million miles (150 million kilometers).
>
> More than 70 years later, in August 2006, 424 astronomers at an IAU
> meeting voted to demote Pluto to "dwarf planet" status.
>
> Two weeks ago, the IAU Executive Committee reclassified Pluto as a
> plutoid. The other object in the plutoid club, Eris, is larger and more
> massive than Pluto.
>
> Astronomers expect to find hundreds of Pluto-sized objects. And so the
> fate of Pluto will determine how these worlds are classified.
>
>
> For instance, new computer modeling suggests an object up to 70 percent
> of Earth's mass is lurking beyond Pluto. This "Planet X," if confirmed,
> would be called a plutoid under the IAU's scheme.
>
> No matter what the scientists say, many kids won't let go.
>
>
> "It's a planet," said fifth-grader Emily Mitchell, whose mother Laurie
> agreed, saying, "I grew up learning it was a planet."
>
> "It's the smallest planet," said Liam, a 4-year-old who is "about to be
> 5."
>
>
> Liam's teacher Rachel Kaplan said, "I was really sad when Pluto was
> declassified as a planet, because I've studied astrology for a number of
> years."
>
> Aileen Wilson said her 7-year-old son is interested in Pluto's label.
> "He's
> interested in why it was a planet and why it's not a planet anymore."
>
> "I know that it was demoted and it's not a planet. But I don't know what
> it's called," said Erin Kelly, a pre-school teacher sitting on a park
> bench with her students in New York.
>
> In the classroom
>
>
> Even as scientists are arguing over the "plutoid" designation, with some
> saying they won't use the term, educators are already latching onto it.
>
> Change is the name of the game in science, according to Gerry Wheeler,
> the executive director of the National Science Teachers Association.
>
> "Basically, it's a teachable moment for science teachers, because it
> shows the dynamic nature of science," Wheeler told SPACE.com.
>
> He added the NSTA will spread news of the plutoid category to science
> teachers in the fall.
>
> Elementary school science teacher Lucy Jensen agrees: "Pluto has made it
> interesting studying our planets this year." She teaches at Joliet Public
> School
> in Montana.
>
> "Our only problem we now have is buying new material, such as posters,
> videos, DVDs and game/study materials that need to be updated," she said.
>
>
> Jensen added that while her fourth-grade students were more upset than
> the third graders about Pluto's demotion, the parents were the most upset.
>
>
> "It is hard to teach old dogs new tricks, and we like what we know," she
> said.
>
> "Time has always been taken in the classroom to ponder the origin of
> Pluto. When
> Pluto became a dwarf planet, along with Eris and Ceres, it made it easier
> to explain why an object of Pluto's small stature could be classified,"
> high-school teacher Milman said. "Now we will just need to teach them more
> new definitions."
>
> Milman added that "dwarf planets" is an easier term for students to grasp
>  compared with plutoids.
>
> "Objects of Pluto, Eris and Ceres' size are too small to be called
> planets so they were called dwarf planets. That was easier for the
> students to understand," she said.
>
> Yet many students are still unaware of the change made in 2006.
>
>
> "My fourth graders still consider Pluto a planet," said Bev Grueber, a
> science teacher at North Bend Elementary in Nebraska. "We do extensive
> oral reports on the planets to meet a state standard, and everyone jumps
> for joy when they get Pluto. Last year, I left Pluto out of the draw and
> they asked where it was, so they still consider it a planet regardless of
> what the space scientists tell us the definition of that planet is."
>
> Aram Friedman, who founded Ansible Technologies Ltd. in New Jersey,
> travels to schools to teach about astronomy using a portable planetarium.
> In a typical
> fifth-grade class, he teaches students the features of the inner planets
> and the outer planets.
>
> Pluto, he says, doesn't fit into those categories. That makes sense to
> kids.
>
> Publishing lag
>
>
> Many science textbooks have only recently caught up with the dwarf planet
>  concept.
>
> For publisher McGraw Hill Education, the 2008 elementary and secondary
> school science textbooks describe Pluto as a dwarf planet.
>
> Middle schools with the current Holt Science and Technology textbooks
> would see Pluto defined as a dwarf planet. McDougal Littell Science took a
> slightly different approach.
>
> "We didn't say how many planets there were, so we didn't have to make a
> lot of changes. We explained, historically, that it had been classified as
> a planet when it was discovered," said Dan Rogers, vice president and
> director of Holt McDougal's science and health product development.
>
>
> McDougal's teacher's edition included a detailed explanation of Pluto's
> dwarf planet status.
>
> "One of the reasons we were cautious is because we thought the whole
> thing was unresolved and was going to change again," Rogers said. "We're
> in the process of developing a brand new program, a new set of books."
>
> In "Traveler's Guide to the Solar System," an astronomy book published in
> 2007
> for kids age 8 to 10, the author notes, "Earth is the third of nine
> planets (some say eight, some say ten, but nine is kind of traditional),
> orbiting our local star, the Sun."
>
> Starry Night, astronomy software that includes educational resources,
> refers to Pluto as a dwarf planet, according to content director Pedro
> Braganca. (Starry
> Night is a division of Imaginova Corp., which also owns SPACE.com.)
>
>
> And soon, educational publishers may need to re-update material. Word has
> it astronomers are vowing to pursue a reinstatement of Pluto as a planet.
>
> Copyright © 2008 Imaginova Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may
> not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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