Analysis of educational and outreach videos about day/night, seasons and lunar phases

Abstract

Studies related to the teaching and learning of everyday astronomical phenomena reveal that a large proportion of students at different educational level, and even teachers, experience difficulties in understanding this subject. An analysis is presented here which focuses on the hypothesis that some of these difficulties may be caused by the way the topic is developed in the explana-tory videos present on the Internet, which are usually used by teachers in their classes or by students for carrying out activities at home. Attention was focused on the analysis of videos about the day/night cycle, the seasons and the lunar phases, phenomena that are taught from the first years of schooling. Conceptual and didactic errors were detected, many of them linked to the most common alternative conceptions that have been revealed in research. This seems to confirm the hypothesis raised and suggests the need for a review by specialists before being used for educational purposes. Therefore, the use of these materials may result in reinforcement of scientifically incorrect explanations.