The Podcast: Timely Teachings - Seasons and the Cycles of Night and Day is a production of the entire Web Seminar: Timely Teachings: Seasons and the Cycles of Night and Day, December 10, 2009. The podcast is 1 hour 6 minutes in duration.

Click, Timely Teachings: Seasons and the Cycles of Night and Day to place this web seminar archive in your Learning Center Library now.

In the source Web Seminar, Jessica Fries-Gaither, Project Director for Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears and Education Resource Specialist at The Ohio State University started the presentation with a content review relating to the seasons. Some concepts related to seasons are hard for students to understand and lead to misconceptions. For example, students assume that the Earth’s variation in distance to the sun is why we have seasons. Relatively speaking, the Earth’s orbit is circular, although diagrams that render the Earth’s orbit as elliptical can perpetuate this misconception. It is actually the angle of incoming sunlight on the Earth’s surface that has a greater effect on seasons. Some misconceptions clear up for students as a consequence of developmental maturity. Using formative assessments such as those found in the Uncovering Student Ideas in Science series can be very helpful in addressing and identifying students’ misconceptions.