When the Perseid meteor shower peaked overnight Aug. 11-12, it offered an opportunity not just to show students the workings of the solar system and deep space, but how uncertainty is actually a core certainty in science. After all, scientific work is less about finding absolute answers — and more about asking questions.
A big event like a meteor shower or April’s solar eclipse can help students understand the role that uncertainty plays in science, but teachers can also tap into smaller, classroom-sized projects that illustrate this concept. Even a small exercise can help learners see how scientists approach their work — and how observation and inquiry are fundamental to all science.
Here’s why it’s important to introduce these concepts to students and illustrate their importance.
Perseids and the uncertainty factor
While scientists can predict fairly well what time of year the Perseids will arrive, other factors play a role in forecasting how powerful the annual event will be — and how well it can be seen.
“We have a pretty good idea of where it is, but what we don’t have is a good handle on how strong it’s going to be, because there is a cloud of material left by a comet, and there are different factors on how dense that cloud will be each year,” said Shannon Schmoll, director of the Abrams Planetarium at Michigan State University. “There is always some level of uncertainty.”
To Schmoll, astronomical events like the Perseids offer an entry point into a fundamental of science: observation. Sending students out to view the meteor shower, for example, engages them in a core aspect of scientific research.
“Observation leads to questions, and questions can be introduced into any scientific environment,” Schmoll said.
Educators eager to incorporate the upcoming Perseids into lesson plans may ask students to observe the night sky and then calculate how many meteors they see over a specific period of time.
The predicted rate for this year’s meteor shower event is 100 meteors an hour — in an ideal setting, Schmoll said. However, she cautioned that it’s unlikely anyone will see meteors at that rate, because that would require looking directly overhead with a dark, clear sky and no visible moon.
Still, the variance in how people will view the meteor shower and where they will be lends itself to tapping into observation and comparison. For example, is the moon visible? Is their view blocked by trees, or are they in an open area with a more expansive view of the sky?
“That can influence an idea of what the number is telling you versus what you can observe, and the numbers we can predict versus what we can view,” Schmoll said.
Other ways to teach uncertainty
While the Perseid meteor shower usually occurs between the middle of July and August — when most schools are on summer break — there are other opportunities to weave the concept of uncertainty into science lessons.
Activities that seem to have an exact answer can help students learn about the role that experimentation, data collection — and uncertainty — play in science, said Jonathan Osborne, professor emeritus at the Stanford University Graduate School of Education. Some of these options can work across any grade level — even with very young students.
One exercise Osborne suggests is having classes discover the boiling point of water by using a thermometer, a beaker of water and a Bunsen burner, and then measuring the temperature of the liquid once it reaches a steady boil. Not every student may get the 100º C reading that is seen as correct. Why?
One student will probably have impurities in their beaker, while another will measure before the water has come to a full boil, and another may have put the thermometer in the steam.
Students need to learn they’re not poor scientists because of these differences, but that this is how science experimentation can work — even when run by trained scientists.
Why teach about uncertainty?
To Beth Covitt, teaching students about uncertainty is important because it’s a critical part of any scientific research, whether conducted in a classroom or a professional lab.
Covitt, who is head of science education research and evaluation and director of the hands-on science center spectrUM at the University of Montana - Missoula, notes that scientific journals even require authors to write about the limitations of their studies or areas of their research that would benefit from additional exploration.
“Sometimes, people think that the presence of uncertainty about a scientific question implies scientific failure, but uncertainty and failure are really quite distinct in science,” said Covitt. “Read any article published in a scientific journal, and you will see a description of continuing uncertainties and unanswered questions that merit further investigation.”
By bringing uncertainty into science classrooms, students learn more about the scientific process, Osborne added.
“Dealing with uncertainty is fundamental to all life,” Osborne said. “Events are essentially unpredictable, and recognizing that it is a feature of all disciplines helps people to be more at ease with it, and to understand why sometimes decisions have to be made on limited evidence.”
Dive Awards
