Lightning: Some Secrets Revealed

Environmental & Science Education, STEM, Earth & Space Science, Earth Science, Science & Society

Ed Hessler

CBS correspondent David Pogue discusses some of the misconceptions about lightning, writing that while "beautiful and dangerous, lightning bolts are one of nature's most captivating and misunderstood phenomena." 

For some common high school misconceptions about lightning see Table 2 from

How to teach lightning activities to spark students' curiosity? by Ildikó Takátsné Lucz and Péter Tasnádi Adv. Sci. Res., 19, 137–144, https://doi.org/10.5194/asr-19-137-2022, 2022 26 Oct 2022. 

 

The short summary from the paper: "Nowadays, thunderstorms and lightning strikes have also come to the forefront of public interest as they cause significant damage, injuries, and forest fires. Due to the lack of knowledge in the public consciousness, many myths have developed around them. Our research aims to determine what can be taught in high schools about lightning strikes, the reduction of their damages, and lightning protection. We created some teaching resources and would like to share our teaching experiences." 

 

The paper was presented at the21st EMS Annual Meeting - virtual: European Conference for Applied Meteorology and Climatology 2021 . EMS refers to the annual conferences of the European Meteorological Society about which you can read more and view previous conferences.

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