Laying the foundations of heliocentrism in primary school II: looking through the eyes of Galileo and Bessel

Abstract

In this work, a didactic sequence for students with ages 9–10 that provides anexperimental approach to the stellar parallax concept and revisits the eventsthat humanity had to transit before the heliocentric model was accepted isintroduced. This sequence complements our adaptation of the firstobservation attempted by Galileo to demonstrate the heliocentric hypothesisto be correct and that was specifically designed for ages 12–13. Anexperimental setup designed to mimic Bessel observations is also introducedin order to bridge the gap between the early attempt by Galileo and the present state of knowledge.