What are Design Experiments?
The best way to describe design experiments is to give an example of an experiment we may carry out. We have been thinking about developing a technology-based unit on the relative motion of the earth and sun and the seasons; that is, why it is warmer in the summer and colder in the winter. Several of us have been working with fourth grade classrooms in Cambridge (with large numbers of minority children) observing teachers, developing materials, and interviewing students about the seasons. Philip Sadler, who interviewed 24 graduating seniors at Harvard, found that only one understood the causes of the seasons. Clearly, this is a topic that students are failing to learn in school, although the seasons are taught in most K-12 curricula. We propose to consider five technologies in developing a unit about the seasons: (1) The television series, The Voyage of the Mimi 2, developed at Bank Street College, has several programs devoted to astronomyin particular, the relative motions of the eart
