Day/night cycle and alteration of seasons: Greek primary school children’s conceptions. (original) (raw)
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Elementary School Students’ Mental Models about Formation of Seasons: A Cross Sectional Study
Journal of Education and Learning, 2015
The purpose of this study is to determine the mental models of elementary school students on seasons and to analyze how these models change in terms of grade levels. The study was conducted with 294 students (5 th , 6 th , 7 th and 8 th graders) studying in an elementary school of Turkey's Black Sea Region. Qualitative and quantitative data collection methods were used in the study. The students first were asked 3 open ended questions (one of them was a drawing) in order to determine their mental models on seasons. Following this, the students took an achievement test on seasons that consisted of 4 multiple questions. Quantitative data were analyzed by SPSS 20.0 while the qualitative data were analyzed by the researchers by using content analysis technique. The results of the study showed that the students construct the formation of seasons in various ways in their minds. However, differently from the literature, the presence of some new mental models was found. For a full understanding of the seasons, the necessity of a set of pre-learnings has been recommended. It will be useful to design basic activities based on hands-on and learning by doing which will enable the most effective learning and to put this in the textbooks in the most suitable way. Additionally tangible physical-scale hands-on models, 3D simulation modeling and planetarium environment should be used in students' education about formation of seasons.
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British Journal of Educational Psychology, 1998
Background. Pupils have consistent everyday astronomical explanations, some of which, e.g., distance theory, are very resistant to change. The reasons why everyday explanations are not replaced by scientific ones have been connected with teaching methods used in school.Aims. The developmental differences in explaining seasonal changes and the reasons why school teaching fails in changing distance theory are studied.Samples. The 112 schoolchildren participating in the study were: 32 pupils from each of grade 3 (age 9–10), grade 5 (age 11–12) and grade 7 (age 13–14) (half of them from a state school, others from Waldorf school) and 16 pupils from grade 9 (age 15–16). Half of the pupils were boys. The participants were divided into groups of four same‐sex and same‐grade pupils (i.e., into 28 groups).Methods. Guided peer discussions in foursomes are used. Explanations of pupils of different ages and from two schools with different teaching methods are compared.Results. The sources of re...
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This paper presents a lesson plan designed to teach seventh-grade students about the seasons and reflections of the students using an inductive approach from a space-based perspective. The plan establishes students’ prior knowledge of the topic and continues with the Eratosthenes experiment as a central experience. Eratosthenes experimented in the 250s BC and calculated the Earth’s circumference during the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. Teachers used this experiment as a practical learning tool to teach the concept of seasons using the inductive method. Eleven seventh-grade students from Turkey, thirty middle-grade students from Indonesia, and their science teachers participated in the study. The students conducted the Eratosthenes experiment in the vernal equinox in Turkey and Indonesia and calculated the circumference of the Earth. The measurements were taken in the experiment from a space-based perspective. After conducting the Eratosthenes experiment, the students reflected on their experiences. They discussed the connection of the experiment to the causes of the seasons.