Confronting Our Misconceptions

When I look back over this conversation, I can guess about things children may have heard. I imagine somewhere somehow (from a book or a parent or a friend) one of these children heard about shadows disappearing at noon.

I'm guessing the initial intent of the comment was to say that when a light source is directly over an object, the shadow is hidden under that object rather than being visible on the ground next to it.

In a effort to make sense a new idea, the children created their own understandings of what it means to not have a shadow at noon. Children.... no, humans do this all of the time. It is how we make sense of the world around us. We build our knowledge. We take new information and try to connect it what we already know in a way that makes sense to us in that moment.

It takes an event that does not match our current understanding of the world to get us to confront misunderstandings. Cat, the math lady, told me a cool phrase for those moments-- discrepant events!

As adults, we can step in a tell children the answers. Alternatively, we can provide room to experiment, room for children to challenge their own thinking after gathering their own evidence. Which is more likely to change their minds in a lasting way?

Andrea: The other day when we were in the forest, Henry said that the 2:40 shadow would always be in the same place. What do you think? Are shadows in the same place at the same time each day?

Giovanni: If the thing that is making the shadow doesn’t move, then I agree.

Emeline: If you did it in the morning it might be in a different place. You would have to record it at the same time every day.

Kirby: It could move a millimeter past that place. It could move so small. It depends on where the sun is.

Giovanni: It would move during different seasons because the sun is at different angles during different seasons.

Andrea: So if it is that last day of winter [the shadow] would be in the same place that it had been and then right when it becomes spring, the first day of spring, it would be in a new place?

Giovanni: Yes. Except noon shadows do not exist.

Rose: At the strike of noon there are no shadows…. or at midnight.

Cameron: There are shadows at noon but they always point north.

Emeline: At midnight they are hard to see because it is so dark they blend in.

Giovanni: I agree and disagree with the shadows of noon pointing north. One second before noon there are shadows pointing north and one second after noon there are shadows pointing north. But at exactly noon the shadows disappear.

Cameron: I say it wouldn’t be pointed exactly north, it would be a tiny slant off. The slant is so tiny it would be too hard to see so it would look like it was pointing north.

Kirby: How does that work that at 11:59 there would be shadows and then they just disappear and then at 12:01…

Rose: We were talking about high noon. At 11:59. the split second it strikes twelve there are no shadows and then there are shadows after that.

A few students give eye witness accounts of this phenomenon.

Ellie: This is something that I want to do an experiment on.

Andrea: Ooooo and experiment!

Ellie: It’s not like you take this gas and this gas and put it together like a scientist. It’s that I want to test at exactly 12:00 what happens.

Andrea: Well we do happen to be at school at noon. So what do you want to do at noon, Ellie?

Ellie: We could just like put a stick in the ground and it has a shadow and then at exactly 12 it might go away and then it will come right back.

Aliza: There is another way. We eat at this… well there is a table on the blacktop and it has this shadow that we eat in every day. It has a big shadow. We could come to lunch a little bit early and then we can see if the shadow goes away because it has a really big shadow.

We go out at noon to watch the shadow.
Does it disappear at the strike of noon?