The nature and cause of the phases of the moon are widely misunderstood. Perhaps the problem is a general decline in scientific literacy, or maybe it is the loss of direct and regular observation of the moon in society generally. Many people do not see the moon as a half-illuminated sphere. Adults are often surprised to realize that the moon can…

This study aims to examine kindergarten children's mental models of the day and night cycle and provide implications for pedagogical practices targeting space science concepts in early childhood classrooms. A total of 46 kindergartners participated in the study, their age ranging from 60 to 75 months, including 22 boys and 24 girls.…

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS 1993) states that by the end of fifth grade, students should understand that a model, such as those depicting the solar system, is a smaller version of the real product, making it easier to physically work with and therefore learn from. However, for students and even adults,…

Twenty-four free-response questions were developed to explore introductory college astronomy students' understanding of gravity in a variety of contexts, including in and around Earth, throughout the solar system, and in hypothetical situations. Questions were separated into three questionnaires, each of which was given to a section of…

The roles of conceptual change and model building in science education are very important and have a profound and wide effect on teaching science. This study examines the change in children's position concepts after instruction, based on different conceptual change theories. Three classes were chosen and divided into three groups, including a…

In order to improve instruction in introductory astronomy, we are investigating students' preinstructional ideas about a number of cosmology topics. This article describes one aspect of this large research study in which 1270 students responded to a subset of three questions each from a larger set of questions about the following areas: definition…

This is a report of an activity of introduction to the study of astronomy developed with a group of future physics teachers at a Brazilian public university. Such activity had the goal of giving privileged emphasis to notions of spatiality, alternative conceptions of the participants, and the process of interaction among peers, with the objective…

This article describes the principles and investigation of a small-group laboratory activity based on refutational modeling to teach the concept of seasons to preservice elementary teachers. The results show that these teachers improved significantly when they had to refute their initial misconceptions practically. (Contains 8 figures and 1 table.)

This study has examined the impact of teaching certain basic concepts of astronomy through a predict-observe-explain strategy, which includes three-dimensional (3D) computer modeling and observations on conceptual changes seen in sixth-grade elementary school children (aged 11-13; number of students: 131). A pre- and postastronomy instruction…

The purpose of this study was twofold. First, it was aimed to identify Turkish pre-service physics teachers' knowledge and understanding of the Moon, Moon phases, and other lunar phenomena. Second, the effects of model-based teaching on pre-service teachers' conceptions were examined. Conceptions were proposed as mental models in this study. Four…

The model of the Big Bang is an integral part of the national curricula in England and Wales. Previous work (e.g. Baxter 1989) has shown that pupils often come into education with many and varied prior misconceptions emanating from both internal and external sources. Whilst virtually all of these misconceptions can be remedied, there will remain…

A recent study (Liu, 2005a, 2005b) revealed a limited number of alternative models of the universe held by young students in Taiwan and in Germany. In line with the previous findings, these alternative models frequently fall into two groups: earth-centred and sun-centred views, which draw a correspondence to the ideas in the European history of…

Two astronomy professors, using the Decoding the Disciplines process, help their students use abstract theories to analyze light and to visualize the enormous scale of astronomical concepts. (Contains 5 figures.)