Secondary Science- Earth in Space
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The Earth in Space
The Earth
Many students age 8 think of there being two earth’s-one flat that we live on, the other spherical and in space. By 9 thought it was round with an edge, like a plate. As students matured, more found that the idea of earth was associated with the idea of “down.” Italic text
Day and Night
Students develop from directly observable reasons to those involving astronomical movements. Broken into four bands of thinking:
- Sun goes to sleep or hides
- Sun is covered by something-clouds, moon or atmosphere
- Sun goes around the earth, earth goes around the sun moves up and down
- Earth spins on axis once a day
Earth, moon and sun
Shift from geocentric to heliocentric system at young age, but unable to identify position of moon. Ideas about shapes of the earth, sun and moon change from two-dimensional to three dimensional to spheres. No apparent trend towards understanding of relative positions, and fewer girls demonstrated understanding than boys. Most students drew all 3 as the same size, or proportional to each other. Could be caused by used models which are not to scale. Phases of moon and eclipses Most students attribute to the earth’s shadow covering the moon, not to motion. 65% of university students did not know. Development of ideas: 1. Clouds covering moon 2. Planets cast shadow 3. Shadow of sun falls on moon 4. Shadow of earth falls on moon 5. phases explained by illuminated portion of moon
Changing year
Trend from near, familiar objects to astral bodies. Most common was distance from Earth to sun is cause of seasons. Many students think that our distance to the sun changes seasonally. Ideas develop to include other planets, and finally the axis of our earth and the angle of sunlight. Males are assumed to have a higher level of astronomical knowledge.
