Utilization of hands-on and simulation activities for teaching middle school lunar concepts

A great deal of literature exists surrounding the misconceptions that students have regarding the moon, specifically how the moon phases and eclipses occur. These studies provide teachers with information regarding what misconceptions their students may come to the classroom with as well as some ideas as to how to approach and correct them. However, these methods are not always validated with classroom-based research, and much of the research that has been done is in the high school and college setting. As such, we have undertaken a study to investigate what a group of middle school students know about the moon pre-instruction, and how hands-on activities and computer simulations affect student learning and understanding of these topics. The results of this project show that neither supplementation was distinguishably more effective in improving student test scores, as measured by normalized gains; this may be an artifact of high pre-test scores, as described herein.