Ever wondered how a Rubrik's Cube™ works? Especially when no longer in its perfect, solved state? So there's nothing much to lose at that point by taking it apart and seeing what's inside. And if done carefully, you could put it back together in its solved state, and no one would be the wiser...except, of course, you.
(This is the seventh Astronomy 210L laboratory at Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA. This course is a one-semester, optional adjunct laboratory to the Astronomy 210 introductory astronomy lecture, taken primarily by students to satisfy their general education science transfer requirement.)
So in this class, hopefully you are becoming experts at doing science and thinking all scienc-y and stuff. You know, like scientists.
And like many scientists do, up to now you've been constructing knowledge by asking and answering research questions.
Many times, instead of building things up, good science is done when tearing things apart--if something doesn't seem quite right, you can fix it; but even if everything was okay in the first place, it is often very instructive to see how something works that was done right. 
So today you'll be looking at research questions asked and answered by students from other laboratory classes. Some of these research projects were done right, and some were done...not quite so right, and it will be up to you to determine what's missing/incomplete/wrong, and how to fix it. And this is all part of peer review in science, where quality research should undergo and withstand scrutiny from others, and in the end wind up validated, improved, or sent back to the drawing board if necessary.(If time allows, the following slides can be shown to students--many of them should able to guess the original devices in these teardown photos.)
Reference:
- Tim Slater, Stephanie Slater, Daniel J. Lyons, Engaging in Astronomical Inquiry, W.H. Freeman & Company, New York, 2010, pp. 43-62,
http://www.whfreeman.com/newcatalog.aspx?disc=Astronomy+%26+Physics&course=Introduction+to+Astronomy&isbn=1429258608.
2 comments:
Astronomy 210L, Spring Semester 2011
Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA
Online post-lab assignment 6
Discuss the most interesting aspect of this lab, and explain why this was personally interesting for you.
The following are a sampling of the student responses to this question, verbatim and unedited.
"Critiquing other student's labs."
"The most interesting part was comparing the varying amount of sunlight in Wyoming over the course of the year versus the stable amount of sunlight on the equator."
"Seeing the different labs that other students across the country tackle, and their results; compared to our class"
"How easy mistakes are to make!!!"
"how people could write research reports so poorly!"
"analyzing different aspects of other peoples research."
"The most interesting aspect was looking at the vague quality of other students's work."
"To see how the rate of sunlight changes at the Ecuator. I had thought that it would change a little bit more than we discovered."
"seeing how labs can be not done correctly"
"analyzing other students lab reports"
"Getting to critique the work of Laramie kids."
"Looking back at the past things we did."
"researching how much the amount of sunlight changes throughout the year depending on where you are."
"I liked being able to critique other students' questions."
"Looking at the different research questions that people came up with."
"Going back and reconstructing other people's work made me feel like I knew more then them"
"using critical thinking skills"
"everything was interesting"
"I found it fun to go through the different research questions."
"the most interesting thing was learning that we have much better research questions than other students"
"Looking at other peoples research questions and comparing them to the ones that I have done."
"It was interesting to have our own 'peer review'. I learned where Laramie WY is. Also, finding faults in other peoples research showed me a better perspective of how to write my own."
"just reading other students research questions. Its good to see the mistakes others make."
"Being able to correct what other students did"
"The most interesting aspect of this lab for me was being able to analyze the other lab reports and figure out whats right and wrong."
"How easy it is to do he wrong steps on your own question."
"Figuring out if the data was complete"
"showed that we could have the right conclusions with bad results
The most interesting part this lab was that we had to critique the research question and information.I also found it interesting that we had to work backwards on the research question."
"I thought some of the mistakes that the people made were interesting."
"It was cool seeing other peoples research questions and how they went about solving them."
"Finding the info for Laramie, WY was cool and it meant no research ?"
"I thought it was interesting how such large mistakes were passed by when my group and I caught them so easily."
Astronomy 210L, Spring Semester 2011
Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA
Online post-lab assignment 6
Discuss the most confusing aspect of this lab, and explain why this was personally confusing for you.
The following are a sampling of the student responses to this question, verbatim and unedited.
"Revising the lab in our own words."
"Nothing was too confusing, but getting all the data points for the sunset and sunrise times over the course of the year was very tedious."
"trying to re-evaluate other students work, and fixing it"
"MILITARY TIME!"
"Analyzing our own research."
"Trying to change the procedure. I kind of felt like I wasn't doing it correctly. It maybe would have helped if you checked our procedures before we wrote them out, just for some reassurance."
"trying to figure out if their assumptions impacted their results"
"Trying to come up with your own conclusion after adding data."
"All the different situations."
"there wasnt much confusing, although it did take a while to redo and correct the research question we chose"
"Figuring out the truth statements from the false one's"
"judging peers and trying to justify their observations"
"trying to choose which question to revise."
"Normally it is the forming your own question and solving it."
"The last part where we had to fix one of the labs was a little difficult, but not too confusing once we figured out what we had to do."
"Just the wording on some of the questions."
"trying to find the exact issues with the zodiac research question."
"The most confusing aspect was formulating the research question.. I always have great difficulty forming it, even when in groups"
"It wasn't that confusing but it took forever."
"Making our own research question"
"fixing the research question"
"pretty straightforward, no equipment needed"
"The most confusing part trying understand what program we were going to use to answer they research question."
"Figuring out how to fix the errors."
"some of those students messed up their research questions a lot, so we had to fix it a lot, which was kinda confusing.."
"how starry night works"
"well. i suppose i was confused about why it wasn't more confusing."
"Nothing was very confusing"
"Collecting new data."
"This lab was pretty easy"
"Heavens above was not working so we searched for info."
"It was pretty straight forward!"
"There was no confusing part of this lab."
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