{"id":1977,"date":"2019-02-23T14:13:04","date_gmt":"2019-02-23T19:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/edt431-531\/?p=1977"},"modified":"2019-02-23T15:44:32","modified_gmt":"2019-02-23T20:44:32","slug":"the-earth-is-how-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/2019\/02\/the-earth-is-how-old\/","title":{"rendered":"The Earth is How Old?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: center\"><em>It&#8217;s four and half billion years old &#8211; not 6,000.<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>The sciences are riddled with a lot of misconceptions that change as we get older, but there&#8217;s nothing wrong with misunderstanding a concept or fact due to a lack of information!<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"How Do We Know How Old the Earth Is?\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7cFYPYaD4zQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>What are some common misconceptions students have in the sciences?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Some misconceptions student within the Earth\/Life sciences that we still hear today even from adults are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;The Earth is only 6,000 years old.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Human beings and dinosaurs coexisted.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Human beings did not evolve from earlier animals.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1270\/1769\/files\/1_a1071f6b-096e-4936-b7d8-678a15f40be7_large.jpg?ssl=1\" alt=\"Image result for humans and dinosaurs together\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Where do they come from?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>There everywhere from social media to even being taught in the classroom. You&#8217;ll see politicians spouting &#8220;It&#8217;s so cold outside, it would be nice to have some global warming right about now!&#8221; and that misinforms people to conflating weather and climate. You&#8217;ll even hear things about the &#8220;inaccuracy of carbon dating&#8221; as an attempt to discredit any conclusions from using it!<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">It\u2019s extremely cold in NY &amp; NJ\u2014not good for flood victims. Where is global warming?<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/realDonaldTrump\/status\/265482479547318272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 5, 2012<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>A can of worms to avoid is the obvious one &#8211; religion. A lot of misconceptions about the Earth&#8217;s age and human development do stem from religious texts and teachings. We need to be respectful of peoples&#8217; beliefs, but let&#8217;s look at the emboldened Nature of Science tenant at the end of this blog,\u00a0\u00a0<em>scientists have seen through decades and in some cases centuries of research that there is a strong reason to believe these are the most likely explanations of our natural world<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">There is nothing &#8220;wrong&#8221; with believing that human beings didn&#8217;t evolve from other animals &#8211; does it really matter in every day, 9-5 life? But, to understand speciation and evolution as a whole <strong>in a science classroom<\/strong>, we have to operate under the notion that they did.<\/p>\n<p><strong>How do we deal with them?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" height=\"200\" width=\"300\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.communityreachcenter.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/shutterstock_300313046-300x200.jpg?resize=300%2C200&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Image result for misconceptions\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It is important, though, as teachers, that we help students alleviate these misconceptions as we move forward not only for sake of them knowing what&#8217;s &#8220;right&#8221; or what&#8217;s &#8220;true&#8221; but because they can&#8217;t synthesize new, compounding material if they cannot understand the basics &#8211; #constructivism, right? The best way to do this, I think, is through utilizing the Nature of Science in the context of those misconceptions, the three most critical of which I think are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Science is an attempt to explain natural phenomena.<\/li>\n<li>Scientific knowledge, while durable, has a\u00a0<span class=\"hubs-glossary-item\">tentative<\/span>\u00a0character.<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Scientific knowledge relies heavily, but not entirely, on observation, experimental evidence, rational arguments and skepticism.<\/strong><\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Instead of just telling students (or even adults) that they&#8217;re wrong about the misconception they hold and informing them of the right answer, help them understand\u00a0<em>why\u00a0<\/em>scientists have come up with the conclusions they have and why they are so reliable.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-1978 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.miamioh.edu\/edt431-531\/files\/2019\/02\/Screenshot-2019-02-23-at-2.09.27-PM-300x77.png?resize=420%2C108\" alt=\"\" width=\"420\" height=\"108\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/files\/2019\/02\/Screenshot-2019-02-23-at-2.09.27-PM.png?resize=300%2C77&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/files\/2019\/02\/Screenshot-2019-02-23-at-2.09.27-PM.png?w=587&amp;ssl=1 587w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 420px) 100vw, 420px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>It&#8217;s four and half billion years old &#8211; not 6,000. The sciences are riddled with a lot of misconceptions that change as we get older, <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/2019\/02\/the-earth-is-how-old\/\" title=\"The Earth is How Old?\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2516,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc","category-strengths-in-science-classrooms"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2516"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1977"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1981,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1977\/revisions\/1981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/exemplary-science-teaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}