Geocentrism in Introductory Astronomy

Students believe in the heliocentric solar system at the beginning of an introductory astronomy course. We will present six years of class polling showing how many of them could present a reasoned argument for this position at the beginning of the semester. Beginning in the fall 2022, classes listen to geocentric, heliocentric, and acentric points of view for observational data as they are presented, such as parallax. The historic evolution of these ideas are also presented at the beginning of the courses. From this diversity of ideas, many students discover the interaction between science and philosophy. The changes in student views will be presented in free response and poll form. We believe that the results show that by introducing different points of view there is an increase in understanding the scientific method.