Improving science content learning with choreographed songs at an astronomy summer camp

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn this exploratory study, we looked at the effect adding a choreographed song to camp had on middle-school aged campers’ retention of two concepts: order of the planets with increasing distance from the Sun, and phases of the Moon listed in the correct order. We conducted pre- and post-assessments on these questions for multiple years of the camp; some years had a song to go with those topics, and other years did not have a song. We found that for years when the song accompanied these concepts, campers showed an overall greater increase in knowledge of these topics than for years when there was not a song. The songs in this study were accompanied by simple movements that were designed to highlight the lyrics. For order of the planets, the effect size was −0.34 for the year during which there was no song and effect sizes were 1.02, 1.34, and 0.59 for subsequent years during which there was the song with movement. For phases of the moon, effect sizes were 1.48 and 1.43 for the two years preceding the introduction of the lunar phases song, and the effect size was 2.04 the year this song and its motions were introduced.