20090210

Astronomy clicker question: planet orbit position

Astronomy 210, Spring Semester 2009
Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA

Students were asked the following clicker question (Classroom Performance System, einstruction.com) at the end of their learning cycle:

Consider the view of the eastern horizon shown below, as seen from San Luis Obispo, CA at a certain date/time. Carefully note the positions of the Sun, and an unknown planet.


Which of planetary positions (A)-(E) shown below corresponds to the planet shown above? (This drawing is not to scale, and orbits have been simplified as circles instead of ellipses.)

(F) = (I'm lost and don't know how to answer this.)

Section 30676 (pre-)
(A) : 6 students
(B) : 1 student
(C) : 25 students
(D) : 7 students
(E) : 2 students
(F) : 4 students

This question was asked again after displaying the tallied results with the lack of consensus, with the following results. No comments were made by the instructor, in order to see if students were going to be able to discuss and determine the correct answer among themselves.

Section 30676 (post-)
(A) : 0 students
(B) : 0 students
(C) : 43 students
(D) : 1 student
(E) : 0 students
(F) : 1 student

Correct answer: (C)

Since the Sun is in the east, this is sunrise (6 AM), and the planet is found near the west horizon, away from the Sun.

Pre- to post- peer-interaction gains:
pre-interaction correct = 56%
post-interaction correct = 96%
Hake (normalized) gain <g> = 90%

Section 30674 (pre-)
(A) : 2 students
(B) : 0 students
(C) : 14 students
(D) : 3 students
(E) : 10 students
(F) : 2 students

Section 30674
(A) : 0 students
(B) : 0 students
(C) : 31 students
(D) : 0 students
(E) : 0 students
(F) : 0 students

Pre- to post- peer-interaction gains:
pre-interaction correct = 45%
post-interaction correct = 100%
Hake (normalized) gain <g> = 100%

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