Inductive Thinking
Model
for Solar System Composition:
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| Syntax i | Social System | Principles of Reaction | Support System | Application | |
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Overt Activity |
Example Questions |
Possible Example Responses |
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Concept Formation
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Enumerate
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What characteristics of a planet can you list? |
Size,
Distance from sun, distance from Earth,
composition, atmosphere,
moons, rings,
gravity, mass,
length of day, length of year |
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Group
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Which of these belong together?
What can you put together from different planets? Why do they go together? |
Size-atmosphere;
size-moons; size-rings;
size-distance from sun; size-composition;
moons-distance from sun; moons-rings;
distance from sun-length of year; distance from sun-rings; distance
from sun-temperature |
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Categorize
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How would you put these together? What would you call them? |
Things related to size;
Things related to distance from sun; Things related to moons |
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Interpretation of Data
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ID
Relationships
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What did you find? What did you notice? |
Larger planets have more moons than
smaller planets;
Larger planets have rings, smaller
don’t; Smaller planets are Rocky, Larger planets are Gaseous;
Larger planets are farther from the
sun; Pluto is an exception-Why? |
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Explore
Relationships
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Why are these related? What causes what? |
Why are the larger planets gaseous? Why do the smaller planets have less atmospheres? |
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Infer
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What do you conclude? What does this mean? What do you "see?" |
Larger planets have more gravity, so
they can hold on to more atmosphere, moons, and rings.
Smaller planets are closer to the
sun, the sun puts out a lot of energy, maybe that
affects what the planet can hold onto in the way of atmosphere, moons. |
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Application of Principles
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Predict
Consequences
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What would happen if you could switch Jupiter and Mercury’s orbits? What would happen if Venus was where Earth is? |
Jupiter could lose mass, and then
atmosphere, moons, rings.
Mercury would be uniformly cold. Venus would cool off, life might
develop. |
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Support
Predictions
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Why? |
The sun’s energy would push away the
hydrogen and other light elements.
Loss of mass, plus the sun’s greater
mass, would reduce Jupiter’s gravitational hold, and make it harder to hang
on to moons. Mercury would rotate faster and not
get as much solar energy.
Less solar energy would allow
cooling and clearing of Venus’ atmosphere, formation of water. |
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Verify
Predictions
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No close planets in our solar system
have massive hydrogen or methane atmospheres; they probably did when the
solar system was young.
Venus’ heavy atmosphere is not
hydrogen. Mercury’s rotation is
gravitationally locked to the sun. |
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Back to: Solar System Home Page
Concept Formation
The students will:
1. enumerate and list a large number of characteristics of planets. These will be found on the web sites the teacher gives them. (See the PowerPoint) The students will be expected to use the computer extensively in their research.
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The "truth" in astronomy changes frequently. New technologies make new measurements more exact than before, or they find more subtle irregularities or variances than before. Therefore, students should research astronomy on the Web in order to get the current best information, and so they will know where to go to find it again, when it changes! |
Enumerating and listing this rather large number of categories will force the students to look up terms in the glossary provided, and begin to compare with other data. This will lead them to:
2. group what they find. This is natural and necessary. As you look at large amounts of information, you lose track, unless you put it into groups that you can deal with.
As students group into headings the categories they found they will need to:
3. label and categorize. Certain things seem to go together, and other things don't. As you look closely at these data groups, there will be some obvious ties and some that won't be so obvious, but that may come together in your mind as you work with them.
Interpretation of Data
The students will:
1. identify relationships. This is the time when the students will actually put together, for instance, two things that looked like they should be together. They identify and then they:
2. explore those relationships. They say or write things like: "The larger planets are really different from the small ones! They're SO much bigger! They have SO MANY moons!" This leads them to:
3. make inferences. The students will, one hopes, begin to state things like: "the larger planets have a lot more gravity. This must help them to hold on to more moons, rings, lighter elements like hydrogen in their atmospheres, etc."
Application of Principles
The students will:
1. predict consequences. Now is the time for the students to go beyond the more basic thought processes and really analyze their prior statements. They've made hypotheses, now they can make predictions based upon them. The teacher asks pointed questions regarding "what if..." scenarios. The answer is definitely not known, here.
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In astronomy, almost all observations are from a distance and with a large factor of inference, because we can only look at things and decide what they're doing based upon what we've seen similar things doing. If you ever wanted an inexact science, here it is. Usually the math is very good, and scientists make predictions based upon very precise mathematical calculations, but unlike earth-based sciences it's all OUT THERE, a long way away. We can't directly test our hypotheses, we can only look at more possible examples. |
So now the students have to:
2. support their predictions. Any wild guess can be made. Assertions are commonplace in today's society. When some celebrity is challenged to support an assertion, that celebrity may get defensive and even abusive of the person who challenges them, because its hard to ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. So now the students have to:
3. verify their predictions. As stated above, in astronomy this is primarily done by pointing to other examples.
Social System
The teacher begins the process. This is a teacher-led activity. But, after getting things started, the teacher must be able to let the students go. They learn here by themselves, or by helping each other. Lines of inquiry are begun and then followed BY THE STUDENTS. The teacher asks leading questions, gives direction almost surreptitiously, just tosses a ball out there, and the students take the ball and run with it. The activity level is high, but not out of control (although some casual observers may not always agree).
Principles of Reaction
The teacher responsible for keeping the students on task and on track. The tasks need to be done in order so that the students get the right setup for each subsequent task. They can't group planetary characteristics if they haven't listed the majority of them. Unexplored relationships will not lead to meaningful inferences.
Support System
This model can be applied to any data-rich field. Politics, geography, psychology, history and others could utilize this model if the students would be able to learn by analyzing data and extrapolating from it.
We are often directed to teach thinking. That is the primary application of this model. It is designed to develop thinking capacity. In the process, large amounts of data must be learned. Normally, mere memorization, at best, gets you through the test, but you don't really learn or remember it. If, however, you USE the learned information to do something, you tend to remember a lot more of it. The third strategy, Application of Principles, forces the students to become creative and original.
Additionally, when students use an inductive method on a regular basis, they can become familiar with an increasing number of information sources. This increases their power as an individual to think, because they know where to find answers when they don't know, and they can be more skeptical of those who make assertions, challenging them to provide proof, because the students know it is attainable if it exists.