24 May The death of Pluto and how not to teach science

When Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of New York’s Hyden Planetarium, re-categorized Pluto as one of many small, icy, irregularly orbiting bodies at the outer edge of the solar system, he got hate mail from third graders.

As recounted in an interview with D.J. Grothe of The Skeptical Inquirer magazine, the episode says a lot about what’s wrong with the way we teach science in grade school. [Hat tip: Silas.]