Learning astronomy involves significant spatial reasoning, such as learning to describe Earth-based phenomena and understanding space-based explanations for those phenomena as well as using the relevant size and scale information to interpret these frames of reference. This study examines daily celestial motion (DCM) as one case of how children…

This study describes the process of defining a hypothetical learning progression (LP) for astronomy around the big idea of "Solar System formation." At the most sophisticated level, students can explain how the formation process led to the current Solar System by considering how the planets formed from the collapse of a rotating cloud of…

Student attitudes about learning science and student ideas about the nature of science were compared at the end of two astronomy courses taught in Fall 2007, a course with a traditional astronomy curriculum and a transformed course, whose traditional astronomy curriculum was supplemented by an embedded curriculum that explicitly addressed the…

This is the first in a series of five articles describing a national study of general education astronomy students' conceptual and reasoning difficulties with cosmology. In this paper, we describe the process by which we designed four new surveys to assess general education astronomy students' conceptual cosmology knowledge. These surveys focused…

This study reports middle school astronomy classes that implemented photographs and classroom response systems (CRSs) in a discussion-oriented pedagogy with a curriculum unit for the topics of "day-night" and "cause of seasons." In the new pedagogy, a teacher presented conceptual questions with photographs, her 6th grade…

Explains the philosophy that forms the basis of a high school physical science course based on astronomy and the activity-based textbook that accompanies it. Cites specific examples of misconceptions related to astronomy and recommends various diagnostic and concept change strategies. (DDR)

This case study of a teacher who engaged his students in inquiry within a technologically rich classroom was conducted over 5 weeks, including 15 regularly scheduled classes. Data include extensive teacher interviews, e-mail, and artifacts such as class notes, curriculum guides, and handouts. A retrospective analysis methodology was utilized to…