![]() ![]() ![]() Here again, we have a situation where new scientific data conflicts with an existing theory. He wrote to his employer, Cosimo de Medici about what he had found and said: “I have named this discovery for you – they are the Medician Moons!” History disagreed with Galileo, and today we know them as the Galilean Moons of Jupiter. Galileo named the new moons individually for lovers and friends of Jupiter (you may know him as Zeus!). The interesting part was that the old geocentric theory said that “everything circles the Earth” – these new moons clearly did not do that. These objects were clearly dancing attendance on the giant planet, and it did not take many days before Galileo realized that they were actually moons in orbit. If Jupiter were moving through space, it would simply pass the stars by, but the stars themselves would not move. Galileo originally thought that these bright objects near Jupiter were stars, but just a few days’ observations convinced him that this could not be true. The core point of this exercise is to ask students to use what they see as experimental data and compare it to the predictions made by the geocentric model. In his day, Galileo was taught that everything went around the Earth. Some of this is difficult for children, we have been brought up learning that moons go around planets – Galileo had no such advantage! When we teach a lesson such as this one, sometimes it helps children to role play and take on the roles of Galileo and some of his opponents for the day. The whole point of this model is to allow students to see what Galileo did when he first turned his telescope on Jupiter in 1609. It was this idea that everything orbits the Earth which was the first crack in the geocentric theory that Galileo would exploit in his quest to prove the heliocentric system correct. In fact, in the geocentric system, everything orbits the Earth! The Sun, the Moon, the various planets, and even the distant stars all revolve around the Earth at different speeds and distances. The geocentric system of Aristotle has the Earth in the center of everything – and it is completely unmoving it neither spins on its axis each day, nor does it orbit the Sun every year. This is a key idea in STEM culture and thinking. Children in the 21 st century are the beneficiaries of centuries of scientific struggle and learning never the less, an understanding of the scientific ideas from Galileo’s time can be useful in showing our children how science changes and evolves as new facts and ideas are discovered. Many of the features and ideas represented in this model will seem strange to your students, and even contradict things they have already been taught. Before you embark on this activity, it is a good idea to acquaint your students, and yourself, with the basic features of the old geocentric model of Aristotle and Ptolemy. This activity will allow your students to recreate Galileo’s discovery of the four largest moons of Jupiter. ![]()
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