Introduce the process of documenting initial ideas with responses to diagnostic questions.

• The theme of this course is: What happens when light from the Sun shines on the Earth?

• One phenomenon many people notice is light shining from the Sun.

• Another phenomenon many people enjoy seeing is the Moon.
How many of you have ever seen the moon? (presumably everyone )

• We would like you to document your initial knowledge about the Sun and the Moon.

Please write your responses without talking with your group members.
We’ll ask you to do this again near the end of the course; hopefully you will know more then!
We’ll ask you then to compare your initial and current knowledge and to think about your learning process.

So what you are doing now is documenting your initial knowledge: What do you know about the Sun and the Moon right now?

Distribute Sun and Moon diagnostic question (DQ).
Offer a book or NSTA journal to browse for those who finish early.
Collect the responses. Put in course notebook under Day 1.
Emily will scan these after class and return during week 8 after repeating the DQ.