Original Title:

A black hole lurked at the center of our Galaxy

Keywords:

demonstrator astronomy black hole sagitarius A milkyway centre of our galaxy salsa J kepler

Description:

Teaching about the Universe involves describing extraordinary objects that have little in common with our daily life. Students are introduced to a whole new world of phenomena that they had no idea could exist. Students may get engaged on the subject, but the traditional textbook based instruction does not meet the expectation of the students, since these are theoretical and abstract ideas that they are required to accept and learn. They are shown beautiful pictures, but the essence of the subject is skipped: How are those pictures taken? What do those colors represent? What phenomena are occurring? How do we know so much about objects that lie so distant? It is not easy for teachers to use infrastructures that allow them to explore the subject on a more realistic manner – for instance, how can they “show” their students a black hole?
On this particular subject, black holes, students usually have the idea that since a black hole does not emit light, it cannot be detected. But books talk about black holes as a sure thing – so how do scientists infer the existence of a black hole? It is also frequent for students to think about a black hole as an entity that will swallow everything around it – so they think that the whole universe will end up being pulled into a black hole.
Another common educational problem is that students tend to separate science subjects in a way that they do not associate Astronomy with Physics. They have difficulties in applying what they learn in Mechanics, for example, to the motions in the sky. Moreover, they might have doubts in applying the same laws to astronomical situations as the ones they apply here on Earth.