Collaboration is often emphasized as one of the key twenty-first century competencies to promote scientific literacies through many representational modes. However, collaborative interactions have been often characterized as a coordinated, synchronous, and symmetrical activity in terms of the same level of knowledge with little attention paid…

The Earth's shape concept develops as consecutive cognitive problems (e.g., the location of people and trees on the spherical Earth) are gradually resolved. Establishing the order of problem solving may be important for the organisation of teaching situations. This study attempted to determine the sequence of problems to be resolved based on tasks…

This research with middle school students from Kentucky (KY) and Nevada (NV) provides a snapshot of students' spatial-scientific understandings as we explored how well students understand lunar-related content, both spatially and scientifically, after receiving instruction with similar curricular Earth-Space content. Utilizing a lens of spatial…

In this study, it is aimed to examine the effect of augmented reality application on preschool children's knowledge of space. A mixed method, which combines both quantitative and qualitative methods, was used in the study. The study group consists of 24 children aged 60-72 months. In the study, a 10-question form created in line with the opinions…

This study aimed to elucidate the perceptions and mental models of 5th-grade secondary school pupils about shadows, solar eclipses and lunar eclipses through drawings. A total of 443 pupils studying at public schools in Afyonkarahisar participated in the study. It was conducted as a case study, one of the qualitative research designs. As a data…

This study aimed to examine the opinions of the instructors who work at GUHEM (Gökmen Space and Aviation Training Center) on the exhibition's content, how the exhibition spaces contribute to science education, especially astronomy and aviation, and the types of visitors who frequently visit the center. Nine instructors from GUHEM's science centers…

An immense body of literature on astronomy studies has provided evidence that individuals perceive the lunar phases concept as difficult. Furthermore, many studies have shown erroneous explanations or alternative conceptions of lunar phases. However, there is also a need to understand how individuals construct an explanation of the Moon's phases.…

While new physics bachelor's degree holders have a breadth of possibilities open to them, the initial post-degree outcomes for physics bachelors generally fall into two main categories: entering the workforce or continuing their education at the graduate or professional level. About two-thirds of those continuing with their studies are enrolled in…

Cosmology presents students with ideas that stimulate their curiosity and brings together various concepts from STEM that call on a variety of reasoning types across multiple representational modes, involving subtleties of spacetime relations, a variety of models and evidence requiring multiple lines of high precision observations. This study…

In this paper we are interested in the relationship between disciplinary knowledge and its representation. We carry out a social semiotic analysis of a central tool used in astronomy--the Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) diagram--in order to highlight its disciplinary and pedagogical affordances. The H-R diagram that we know today combines many layers of…

Astronomy, a captivating field that draws upon science, mathematics, and engineering, has traditionally relied on visual representations to convey the wonders of the cosmos. While this approach effectively engages the sighted population, the use of imagery can exclude individuals with blindness or visual impairment (B/VI). Astronomical research is…

The oscillating atmospheric CO[subscript 2] concentrations at Mauna Loa, on the island of Hawaii, Hawaii, United States of America, are Fourier transformed in order to extract the period of oscillations. Also well-known as the Keeling curve, CO[subscript 2] concentrations (in time series) at Mauna Loa oscillate in direct association with seasonal…

The research described here examined the sources of knowledge of astronomy of children (age 3-18) in China and New Zealand, together with the development of their awareness of competing sources, ranging from everyday language, childhood literature and folklore to the scientific accounts prevalent in schools. The authors cite examples of the…

In this paper, we describe a study of cosmic ray muon rates and energies at various elevations on Mauna Kea on the island of Hawaii. The study was originally conceived as an extension to the upper-division modern physics laboratory at the University of Hawaii at Hilo and used the TeachSpin Muon Physics apparatus (abbreviated TSMP below) from that…

In this work, an adaptation is developed of the first observation attempted by Galileo to demonstrate the heliocentric hypothesis to be correct. The objective is to enable students in their final year of elementary school to confront by themselves the same contradictory evidence that Galileo confronted during the second decade of the 17th century.…