The cover story of this week's Science News is about how TV and movies–from A Trip To The Moon to CSI– can be good points-of-entry to educate the public about real science:
During his physics classes, (high school teacher Tom) Rogers also presents accurate cinematic depictions of science. "It's harder to find good stuff," he notes.
For example, he shows excerpts from 2001: A Space Odyssey to teach the concept of artificial gravity. In the film, it's generated along the rim of the rotating space station by centrifugal force. Students use visual clues to estimate the size of the space station and its rate of rotation. They then plug those numbers into the appropriate formula. If they do this correctly, they determine that the gravity at the outer rim of the station is about 90 percent of that on Earth.
