[X] My Assistant

[SigurRosFan]

- BREAKING NEWS: Pluto Demoted, No Longer a Planet

- Pluto loses status as a planet

[odave]

IIRC, my 3rd grade daughter's class spent about a week of their science time on the solar system last year. Since it's been all over the media, questions are bound to come up, so unfortunately it should be covered. Depending on how the teacher wanted to handle it, they could probably get through the discussion in 10-15 minutes. That may blow half of a day's science lesson, but you've still got the rest of the week for more important things.

[Stu]

Depending on how the teacher wanted to handle it, they could probably get through the discussion in 10-15 minutes.

Hmmm... 10-15 minutes to explain how Pluto was predicted, then found; how astronomers looked for then found KBOs; how there was a worldwide astronomical debate, lasting decades, about the identity of Pluto, at the same time as small group of planetary scientists fought desperately for NASA to send a mission to Pluto, and succeeded in launching it just before a visionary and controversial proposal was put forward to expand the solar system, which was then shot down and replaced with what many see as a painfully politically-correct compromise that in turn led to a suspiciously undemocratic vote which finally ended with Pluto being evicted from the list of planets, to the disgust and outrage of many...

If I heard from my kid that a teacher had raced through all that in 10-15 minutes I'd want them slapped with a wet fish and made to do the lesson again.

[JRehling]

If a school does spend a total of 5 hours on the solar system, even 15 minutes for Pluto's planet status is way too much. That's 5% of the total time. Here are nineteen things that deserve mention:

Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars, Asteroids, Meteors, Jupiter, Io, Europa, Saturn, rings, Titan, Uranus, Neptune, Triton, Pluto-Charon, comets.

Granted, some of these things will get a brief mention only, but Mars and Titan among others could be topics dealt with at length.

Space exploration itself could eat an hour. The planet-status topic is going to bump something far more worthy off the list.

[Stu]

If a school does spend a total of 5 hours on the solar system

You see, this is the problem, right here. We're all happy with the idea of a school spending just 5 hours teaching about the solar system. 5 hours! That's NOTHING!

I wasn't suggesting for a moment that the Pluto-related items I listed should be taught at the expense of other astronomical subjects, phenomena and places, far from it. I was trying to say that astronomy is such a huge, huge subject that every planet deserves more than a mere "10-15 minutes". Jeez, I spend whole mornings and afternoon running junior school workshops about the solar system, and have to force myself to keep Mars' section under control as I could easily spend the whole session just talking about Valles Marineris!

This is a real "grrrr!!!" of mine, the quality of science education in schools. I can only speak from experience of schools over here in the UK, but "space" is taught appallingly, almost non-existently. There are token efforts made to cover the subject, at best. If the Pluto debate is the catalyst for improving that then yaaaay, I'm all for it. I just worry that what's more likely is that teachers - those that can be bothered - will take the debate as a sign that Pluto's not even worth bothering with to astronomers, and sweep it under the carpet, dismissing it as an iceball.