Fri 18 Aug 2006

Astronomy The Way It Should Be Taught

All effective presentations and classes require keeping the audience interested and, preferably, engaged in the process.

If you were wanting to teach somebody about why there is even a discussion about whether Pluto should be a planet or not, you could do worse than start with the current back-and-forth between science fiction authors John Scalzi and Scott Westerfield. The best place to start is at the nominal beginning of the current round, which is a pretty action-packed opening sequence. You should also look at Westerfield's reply and then follow the two blogs forwards in time from there.

Each author includes a bunch of links to people who know stuff and include some pretty good arguments themselves. For all their frivolity, the diagram's on Westerfield's site aren't a bad attempt, since "it looks neater this way" is an Occam's Razor approach to things.

Read through the posts. Think about how you now actually know a little more than you did at the start. Then realise that it's because these guys can write! They created a good story and kept the audience interested (plus they have comments, so the audience gets involved too). High school science would be may more interesting if these two wrote the text books (and I like science).

For the record, my opinion? No chance of me being eaten by Cthulu. Pluto stays as a planet.

Topics: science/astronomy