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Theories explaining
astronomical phenomena
at children and adults
Jan Amos Jelinek
Summary:
Knowledge about the globe, place of the Earth in the out-er space and the phenomenon of the day and the night or the phases of the Moon is not reserved only for adults. Children are encountering it on television, multimedia programs, while watching films about nature, also in many stories, fairy tales and legends. They are also trying to explain straight astronomical phenomena e.g. cause of the day and the night. It means that they are building children’s astronomy in their mind. In the article I am presenting children’s intellectual models, that is the ways of explaining astronomical phenomena, as well as find-ings conducted amongst students (future teachers) who appear to manifest persistent explanatory theories.
Key words: astronomy, explanatory theories, mental models,
persistent models, the quality of education
received: 15.12.2015; accepted: 14.02.2016; published: 1.04.2016
dr Jan Amos Jelinek: Department of Early Childhood
Education, The Maria Grzegorzewska University jajelinek@aps.edu.pl
Theories explaining the process of the formation
of explanatory theories
All of us, both adults and children build explanatory theories. They are used e.g. to built feeling of being se-cure (we feel better in environment that we understand). Most of the developed theories are unconscious – it means that to the question of what a planet is we create the „here and now” statement. Explanatory theories are not usual scientific theories. They are being formulated on the basis of intuitive experience. The formation pro-cess of theories explaining surrounding phenomena is still unknown. An attempt to explain this phenomenon is described i.a. by Alison Gopnik and Susan Carey.
According to Alison Gopnik (2009), in terms of ways to build theory, children are similar to scientists. In her view, the method of experiment and a statistical analysis children use proves that they discover the laws that rule the world in the similar ways the scientists do. They build explanatory theories on this basis. The fact that explanatory theories perform the same function is another feature that makes them closer to scientists. On the basis of established theories children try to explain new (not-observed so far) phenomena, on their base they also make classification. Thanks to the formulated theories, children (and adults) feel safe, since with their help they are able to embrace the discovered phenom-enon with their mind in “economic” way.
A scientific theory consists of facts and it is used to clarify causes and conditions of formation of phenom-ena. What makes children’s theories different from the scientific ones is the amount of information acquired about the phenomena – due to the age their experience is smaller. Precision, with which children explain the rela-tion between the cause and the effect of the phenomena, is another diversifying feature. Children’s theories are also characterized by weak relations between them. They do
not create the structure – their theories are not related to each other, and often they even accept coexistence of theories that are contrary to each other. J. Piaget calls this the phenomenon of the duality of states and transforma-tions (Piaget, 1981). He draws attention to the fact that a child in certain period of time (it is called preoperational stage) is not able to perform the action at the level of mind transformation. For example, when they observe two strings of the same length, and then they see an adult who takes one to form a loop, they think that this one is shorter than the one without the loop. It is similar with the mass of the object (the mashed plasticine seems to consist of more plasticine than the solid one), with volume (after pouring water to the narrow glass it seems that there is more water) etc. Piaget suggests that the dominant in this period are stimuli of the sense of sight. Their significant character is disturbing the logical evaluation – children know that it is still the same plasticine, it is still the same water which was only poured... and yet they are answer-ing that “now it’s more”. The issue beanswer-ing discussed here is very important, because the assessment of the perceptual phenomena can interfere with the explaining theory that is being formulated.
Due to the small life experience, the first explana-tory theories are not accurate, and by various research-ers are referred to as naïve theories, intuitive theories (McClosky, 1983) or the preliminary models (Vosnia-dou, 1994). When the number of experience rises, for example when children start considering statements of adults, information from media, the primitive explana-tions they create will be modified. Piaget describes this phenomenon as modifying the cognitive scheme. In his opinion, there are two important processes happening here: the accommodation and the assimilation. Assimi-lation is the process of including new information in the already created cognitive scheme (theory). This change has quantitative character.
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Under the influence of new information it occurs that the previously built theory does not fit to the phe-nomenon at all. On this base the child must reconstruct his or her theory (Piaget called this phenomenon the ac-commodation) and then accept new information. This change is qualitative.
In the course of the development children specify their theories and combine them into a larger, interre-lated structure. Gopnik describes this process as analo-gous to the forming of scientific theories – getting to the theory takes place by modifying earlier theories.
In her opinion, the kids, like scientists, after formu-lating a theory use it until it stops to be valid – such situations occur when it is no more explanatory. This position seems to be coinciding with the description of the investigation of the scientific discovery by Karl Pop-per (1977).
Another opinion is presented by Susan Carey (au-thor of The Origin Of Concept; Carey, 2009: 113-167), who believes that children have an innate mechanism (so-called core of representatives), by which they acquire knowledge about the surrounding world. According to Carey, children create their concepts of phenomena in a different way than adults (and scientists). The author underlines that the difference regards the maturity of intellectual processes. In this respect, Carey seems to promote the concept of creating scientific theories by Thomas Kuhn (1968). He shows that the history of sci-entific discoveries does not depend only on seeking such phenomena which knocked down the existing scientific theories in order to adopt the next theory. Kuhn points out that in the development of civilization thought, there have been a lot of cases of discoveries that hap-pened by chance. He is underlining, that many discov-erers and inventors seeking solutions to solve a problem were directed with internal sensing, the intuition or the peculiar way of perceiving the phenomenon. Carey
de-termines this peculiar way as current in every man in-ternal mechanism (core) with the help of which we are building one’s theories. She thinks that this mechanism is inborn and accessible to small children.
Both Gopnik and Carey pointed out that it is neces-sary to carry out further research to determine the fac-tors under which children modify the explanatory theo-ries and the course of changes of the explaining theory.
Theories on the explanatory theories
In the following part of the article I will present the theories explaining the basic astronomical phenomena of children and adults. To begin with, however, I pre-sent the findings of the research on mechanics theory concerning explaining theory of movement of objects; it is about planning the movement of objects. I am quoting them, because they revealed persistent naive explanatory theories1 in physics and may have
a refer-ence in astronomy (the movement of celestial objects). These tests were conducted by Michael McCloskey (1983: 122-130). The aim of the research was to deter-mine the movement of objects in space. The exadeter-mined people were supposed to draw the trajectory of motion of objects, for example the flight of a thrown ball, ball let go by the running person, bomb falling off the fly-ing plane, etc. The phenomena which focused on the research conducted by McCloskey concerned phenom-ena explained by the physics of Isaac Newton (popu-lar from 14th to the 16th century). One of the
assump-1 As comprehending naive explaining theories I define unscientific beliefs created in the mind of the man on the basis of experience for explaining certain occurrences. The fact that they are under-going slow alterations resulting from newly get information is their feature. The foreign literature uses a lot of synonyms (diffe-rent in some aspects), i.e. naive beliefs, child science, folk theories, intuitive theories, preconceptions, misconceptions or alternative structures.
tions of this baroque physicist is that gravity force acts on an object and prevents it from moving in a straight line.
McCloskey has determined that many adults have misbeliefs concerning the movement of objects, espe-cially movement all over the circuit. This researcher determined that even the university diploma in phys-ics did not guarantee the acceptance of relevant theory explaining this phenomenon. He found out that 80% of physics graduates failed to give the correct answer.
Many adults explained physical phenomena us-ing the theory of the impetus (the object is movus-ing in a straight line, as if no powers worked on it). Quoted here McCloskey examinations are reflected not only in mechanics, but also in terms of explaining astronomical phenomena by adults.
I started from presenting the ways of understand-ing physical experience (includunderstand-ing gravity), because it is where the exploration of the environment starts (in-cluding astronomy). Through Marvin Minsky’s frame system theory (1977) which explains the forming of the theories explaining phenomena in which objects are moving (the author considers that human mind always builds two levels of schemes (frames) – those located above include more abstract elements of phenomena i.e. names. They can also replace lower frames responsible for specific information about objects. The core of the Minsky concept is that observing objects in motion, the human mind does not create new representation for them (frames on the highest levels) all the time, but only is changing and modernizing the lower frame. Thanks to that it still has an image of the same object in memory.
I have focused on astronomy, because this is the area of reality that is not associated with the direct cognition e.g. of shape of the Earth or the movement of objects in the outer space.
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In this regard it is not also possible to speak about direct transferring of the mechanics to the theories explaining astronomical phenomena, since the last ones are coming exclusively from intuitive constructs. Besides, the child creates in his or her mind explana-tory theories based on information that are often con-tradictory to each other. The shape of the Earth can be an example – the child usually experiences flat ground, however learns from adult explanations and television transmissions or internet that the Earth has a shape similar to sphere. In this respect, getting to know the explanatory theories can provide interesting informa-tion about the cognitive development of children.
There is also a pedagogic reason. If we trace the core curriculum of the pre-school education and the early education, it will prove that the teachers are obliged to explain to the children the concepts (e.g. planet, star) and phenomena from the area of astronomy (e.g. the al-teration of day and night, seasons, gravity). From obvi-ous reasons they should not limit to such explanations as the sun rises there (in the East), makes an arch on the
sky (apparent) and goes down there (in the West) – this
is an incomplete explanation and thus can generate and sustain naive theories.
Child astronomy
Methodological publications describe experiments that present a scientific model of reality. The problem is that the questions concerning astronomy are too ab-stract for children, considering the regularities of op-erational development and drawing conclusions about the effects of reversible, irreversible and partly revers-ible changes.
It is known from Jean Piaget’s research on the possi-bilities and limits of the development of a child’s think-ing, especially the causal relationships, that a child’s
reasoning has magical characteristics. Children tend to explain the phenomena by taking into account external elements. For example, they associate two phenomena happening here and now, even though they have noth-ing to do with each other (syncretism). They attribute to people creation of everything in the surrounding (ar-tificialism), at the same time claiming, that objects are alive and aware (animism). The peak of such convictions – according to J. Piaget – takes place at the pre-school age and can last even until the age of 12. Considering the specific character of children’s thinking, one can come to a conclusion that children perceive the stars, planets and other celestial objects as alive creatures and as created by people. It was confirmed by Stefan Szuman (1939) in his research, and contemporarily by Danuta Al-Khamisy (1996).
In the research conducted by Danuta Al-Khamisy, Piaget’s most important findings are confirmed. She asked 6-year old children2 to explain such astronomical
concepts as: sun, moon, star and night. She also asked:
why does the Sun rise every morning, and set in the even-ing and why is the Moon sometimes round, and other times isn’t. Her findings confirm the characteristics of
thinking described by Piaget. Al-Khamisy established, that most of the 6-year-old children (65.3%) have refer-ences to animism, artificialism and magical thinking. The author also confirmed that children are highly in-terested in astronomical questions and found out that they have wide knowledge about the space.
The above mentioned research was conducted nearly twenty years ago3. Since then, the children’s access to
in-formation about the space has radically changed. Dur-2 The author does not give the number of examined children and in
the entire monograph gives only percentage data.
3 The conducted research was not aimed at establishing astrono-mical concepts, but like the cited research of Al-Khamisy, it con-cerned the concepts from this area. Hence, the knowledge of this topic does not have a comprehensive character, but a partial one.
ing this period, children’s understanding of the astro-nomical concepts was researched all over the world (the USA (Vosniadou, Brewer, 1994), India (Samarapunga-van, Vosniadou, Brewer, 1996), Great Britain (Nobes, Martin, Panagiotaki, 2005), Estonia (Hannust, Kikas, 2012), Turkey (Özsoy, 2012) and Greece (Vosniadou, Brewer, 1994)). This research was rooted in the psycho-logical concept of mental models theory, according to which each man, parallel to the knowledge about the world he constructs, builds explanatory theories about the phenomena happening in his surroundings4.
Pre-liminary theories explaining children (prescientific models, preconceptions5) must be taken into account
on each stage of the formal education to eliminate the older concepts, which can make acquiring the scientific model more difficult (Özsoy, 2012, 407-415).
The pioneer of research concerning finding chil-dren’s explanations in the area of astronomy is Stella Vosniadou (1994, 123-183), who conducted research to establish a mental model of the Earth’s shape and the night/day phenomenon. She described six mental mod-els of the shape of the Earth, which turned out to be universal – they appeared in the statements of children in many countries. Significant differences in the men-tal models concerned were present in India and in the USA, where models not observed in other countries ap-peared6. These differences are attributed to the media
4 The theory of mental models is compatible with the opinions of constructivists such as J. Piaget, L. Wygotski or J. Bruner. 5 In foreign literature authors are using comprehending the
intellec-tual model. Under this notion researchers understand unscientific beliefs created in the mind of the man on the basis of experience for explaining certain occurrences. The fact that they are under-going slow alterations resulting from newly get information is a characteristic of intellectual models. The foreign literature uses a lot of synonyms (different in some aspects), i.e. naive beliefs, child science, folk theories, intuitive theories, preconceptions, misconceptions or alternative structures.
6 For example, the Earth swims in a big ocean – the model often ap-peared in the explanations of the Indian children, or the so called
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(e.g. pictures of the Earth seen from the space) and ac-cess to them, as well as cultural influences (especially fairy tales and legends, e.g. about the creation of the world).
I will present now mental models of the shape of the Earth which may indicate children’s explanatory theories, concerning astronomical phenomena. They have been formulated on the basis of findings by Stella Vosniadou (1994, 123-183). She examined 60 children from age 6 to 11. She asked children to draw the Earth and to show one of three-dimensional models of the Earth which relates best to their image of the planet.
The youngest children present the horizontal model. They draw horizontal line, on which they indi-cate the objects that are in the closest environment – they everyday picture. These children present the Earth in the reduced scope, so it’s no surprise that it is flat. Children who present the horizontal model do not pon-der over the entire shape of the Earth; in their theory they refer only to the closest environment. In the con-text of this phenomenon, children asked about the cause of the alternation of day and night indicate that the day begins with the appearance of the Sun in the sky – and this time they explain the phenomenon through the prism of everyday observation (the night for these chil-dren is the result of the appearance of the Moon, as the “opposite“ to the Sun).
The flat Earth model is presented by children who in their explanations do not focus only on the closest environment, but include also information they have received from the outside world (from adults, from media). At first glance, children’s drawings presenting this model suggest that Earth is seen as spherical shape (make impression of the scientific image of the
environ-dual Earth model – pointing to the fact that children do not con-nect the picture of the Earth seen from space with everyday pic-ture – line of the horizon – this model often appeared among the American children.
ment). In reality, however, these children draw a circu-lar disk seen from the top, what shows that their per-spective is broader in relation to the horizontal model, but still limited with everyday experience. In the draw-ings they mark the Earth as the round or rectangular platform on which they also locate people. Amongst the available models, children choose the rectangular or round disk. They claim that if you walk for many days,
you will get to the end (to the edge) and you can fall. They
do not imagine yet that in the southern hemisphere “life goes upside down”.
The third model presented by pre-school and school children is a hollow sphere model. These children know that the Earth is round, and people cannot fall off it, but still think that the Earth is flat. In their views, the shape of the Earth is similar to glass of a round aquarium. Such picture is an attempt to connect the information received. On such Earth people live only in the bottom of the ball, and you cannot fall off it. They describe the Earth as round and among the models they choose the ball.
The dual Earth model combines a horizontal model (that is everyday experience) and the flat Earth model (with information received from the world of adults). Children presenting this model describe the shape of the Earth as round and amongst models they choose the ball or the disk. They claim that the Earth has an edge from which you can fall. However, what is charac-teristic of this model, children present two Earths, one seen usually – the flat horizontal line with the objects on it (trees, houses and people) and the spherical Earth in the sky. The “second” Earth resembles the skyscape, on which the illuminated Moon is visible. Children treat “the round” Earth as the planet adults talk about (you cannot fall off it, it is round). Such dualistic model points how it is difficult for children to adopt contradic-tory information about the surrounding world.
The flattened sphere model characterizes those
children who show the Earth as the ellipse (or egg) with clearly flattened poles. Children, who pointed the round shape of the Earth and during choice of the model chose the ball, also claimed that if you go for many days you will get to the same point. In drawings people are only at the top of the sphere where you can see it is flattened. Pictures of this type show the attempt to connect infor-mation that (a) Earth is a sphere, (b) everything with-out support falls down (gravity) and (c) the horizon line is flat. When asked how the Earth is staying in the outer space they say that Earth cannot “float” alone in the outer space. They think that it must be attached to something. They give examples of a stick or large needle on which the Earth floats in space.
Amongst preschool children you can also find ex-planations that should be characterized as scientific (the spherical Earth model). Children who present this model recognize the shape of the Earth as spherical – from the three-dimensional models they choose the ball which they regard as the most similar shape to the Earth. However, they differ from persons representing the flat Earth model. They believe that it is possible to come back to the same place from which they left – their explanations suggest that they discovered the action of Earth’s gravity. They know that people in New Zealand live in the same way as in Poland and that the planet Earth does not have to be supported by something, and that it “floats” in the outer space. These explanations are shown in children’s drawings, where they present peo-ple as living around a circle.
On the basis of presented models it can be concluded that explanatory theories created by children are the re-sult of different attempts of connecting gained informa-tion. Children have many difficulties in getting rid of perceiving the flat line of horizon and accepting spheri-cal image of the Earth. There is another problem
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nected with this issue – location of people living on the Earth. Flat horizon line (flat Earth) was not difficult for them, therefore they have difficulties in accepting the spherical image. I call these specific children explana-tory theories relating to astronomy child astronomy (Jelinek, 2015).
Because the study to determine the ways of explana-tion of astronomical phenomena were conducted in dif-ferent cultures, it is not possible to state with full firm-ness that all formulated models can be found amongst Polish children. Preliminary study on this subject was conducted as a part of the seminar work by students of The Maria Grzegorzewska University and confirmed the presence of some models. The qualitative study was held in the form of conversations (as a support for the students there was a plan of the conversation which was applied loosely, according to the statements of children). There were 15 children examined at the age of 5 years. The plan of the conversation was based on three artistic works: (1) building the daily image, and (2) of night sky, and (3) creating a model of the shape of the Earth with plasticine.
Due to the limited publishing possibilities I will quote analysis of the statement of one child – Emilia, 5-year-old girl. She knows that the Sun is yellow, but sometimes also orange; she knows that it moves across the sky and sometimes you cannot see it (on a sheet of paper she shows the movement of the Sun – from right to left indicating that at noonday the Sun is in the mid-dle). To the question where is the Sun at night, the girl hides the image of the Sun behind the cloud. She claims that clouds are made of cotton wool, and they are moved by wind and there is always the same number of them. She knows that you cannot touch them because they are too high. According to the girl, the Moon is made of chewing gum. She indicates that the Moon is yellow and can change its shape (draws the crescent and circle).
She explains that the Moon looks like the crescent when
I go back from the pre-school, and it’s round when it’s midnight. She has chosen the crescent roll as the shape
of the Moon and simulates the movement of the Moon in the daily sky – she moves on the shape of the sign of the infinity (of lying eight) and according to Emilia – the Moon rotates around during this motion. Behind the cause of night the girl indicates the people’s need for rest. While characterizing the Moon, she notices, that at night it also changes its place (she gives examples of her own observation here). She thinks that the Moon is il-luminated at night so that [at night] there is a little light. There are fewer clouds at night and they are darker. It is possible to see the stars only when there is dark. In the night sky you can see the stars (but she is not able to ex-plain why you can see them even though there is dark).
Amongst 15 examined children 6 built the flat Earth model from plasticine. The statements showed that these children had not been able to go beyond the area of eve-ryday experience. When asked about what is below the ground they pointed stones and sand. When they were asked whether people could live on the other side of the Earth they pointed no because there is no air and they
would be suffocated (they had in mind living inside the
Earth – between sand and stones).
Many girls’ statements add up to the studies ob-tained by Piaget (2006). He gives examples of children statements that also indicate, that clouds are real ob-jects (artificialism), and the Sun is shining so it could be bright (animism). Because the conducted study does not introduce dominating mental models amongst pre-school and pre-school children, it is difficult, on the basis of the available information, to design effective education-al situations. It is necessary to carry out further research in this regard7.
7 I am trying at the moment to obtain funds for a research on the relevant topics (NCN project), and in parallel I am also carrying
Among presented Vosniadou models it is possible to mention three types. The first one is a preliminary model (models) which constitutes the sum of collected information and produced on the basis of explanatory theories; they do not go beyond the daily experience. In-direct models are the second type (or simplified in terms
of scientific reason – Vosniadou uses such an
expres-sion). Their different forms prove many views the kids create by combining everyday experience and scientific information (adults explanations and information from media). The third type is a model of the scientific expla-nation. Most changes are made among indirect models. Piaget explains this process through the reorganization of the cognitive structure; Gopnik and Carey talk about creating more excellent explanatory theories.
Adults’ explanatory theories
The research conducted by Sibel Özsoy (2012, 407-415) showed that is important to control the pre-scientific theories explaining the phenomena, as they may hinder the adoption of scientific theories. It also turns out that over the years people have become im-mune to changes in the accepted explanatory theories. However, McCloskey studies showed that adults may manifest persistent naive theories. Behind the cause of this occurrence Özsoy shows the lack of reviewing own theories. In the end, the theories which are not being checked “freeze” and become binding (although they are unconscious).
This is confirmed by the result of the test which was carried out among 100 students of pre-school education and the early-school education (candidates for teach-ers) in 2014 and in 2015 at The Maria Grzegorzewska University. The aim of the test was to determine how out research together with students as a part of seminar works in order to get a better understanding of the studied phenomenon.
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students of the graduate year of the bachelor’s degree explain astronomical phenomena. This test has been carried out in the form of paper-pencil and was not an-nounced earlier. Students were asked three open ques-tions concerning astronomy:
• explain the cause of seasons on the Earth;
• explain why the Moon once is illuminated entirely, and once looks like a “crescent”;
• draw in the rectangle the movement of the Sun ac-ross the sky during day (a) in the summer and (b) in the winter.
The first and second questions were formulated in such a way that they resemble child’s/pupil’s questions. Students were obliged to sign their work to increase their motivation and efforts to be provided comprehen-sive replies.
The first question: explain the cause of seasons on the Earth. The correct answer is: seasons on the Earth are the result of the angle of the Sun’s rays. Amongst obtained replies: only 6 people gave correct answers! 20 people named the phenomenon without providing ex-planation (they used such expressions as: the movement
of Earth on the orbit around the Sun). Twenty four
per-sons gave the incomplete explanation (e.g. “the Earth is turning, is circulating among the sun, various distance from the sun”). 26 persons gave the wrong answer. Peo-ple were referring to the climate (which is the effect, but not the cause), to the rotation and geocentrism! Eight persons mentioned the distance from the Sun to the Earth. They answered that the Earth in the winter is
far-ther from the Sun, and in the summer it is closer (in fact it
is exactly the other way round). Twelve persons did not answer, and 4 admitted they did not know. Amongst the answers there were also those that caused a big surprise: (example 1) the seasons result from the change of position
of the Sun to the Earth; (example 2) the seasons result from the fact that the Sun is traveling around the Earth.
Explain why the Moon is illuminated once en-tirely, and once it looks like a “crescent”, describe the phenomena. Due to the nature of the question, there were many possible answers; here are some of the ac-cepted replies: different lighting of the Moon by the Sun;
the Moon travels around the Earth and it is seen differ-ently from different points. Despite the fact that Moon is
quite often seen on the sky, up to 90 people gave wrong answer or insufficient explanation. Eleven people gave the name of the phenomenon (the phases of the Moon), but did not explain it. Fifty two persons stated that the lunar eclipse caused by the Earth or other planets is the cause of the phenomenon. However, the lunar eclipse caused by the Earth is exceptional and does not appear universally. Five persons gave the incomplete answer. Sixteen people did not answer, while 6 students gave other wrong answers.
The third task was to draw in a rectangle box the apparent movement of the Sun in the sky during the day (a) in summer and (b) in winter, marking the drawn lines and marking by arrows the direction of movement. The correct answer is the one in which the ostensible movement of the Sun on the summer sky is higher and lower in winter, and both the movements happen from the left to the right (from the East to the West). Amongst the responses: the correct motion of the Sun on the sky was drawn by 58 people. Incorrect draw-ings were presented by 28 people who i.a. confused the directions (from the West to the East), whether scratch-ing a loop (as if the Sun on the sky performed the move-ment on the orbit). Thirteen students did not answer at all.
As a part of the test, students were also asked addi-tional questions which were to verify the ability to pre-dict the movement of the objects in the space (mechan-ics of motion). I have used the same illustrations which McCloskey used (1983, 122-130).
In the first task the students were supposed to draw the trajectory of a ball, which was held on the string and earlier was dispersed and moved in circular motion (by centrifugal force). The students’ task was to draw an arrow indicating the direction of the ball. Moving in a straight line is recognized as a correct answer (it is about presentation of the movements of the ball seen from above). As the result, the ball is supposed to stop to move in an arc and continue moving in one direc-tion. From 90 obtained responses only 11 students gave the correct answer. As much as 72 people gave incorrect answers, pointing at continuous movement on the cir-cuit (and not in a straight line). Let me add here that like McCloskey did, the deviation not greater than 5 degrees was considered as the correct answer.
In the next task students had to predict (and draw) the trajectory of a ball which was set on the rope and moved like pendulum. The correct answer was the one in which the move of the ball was presented as parabola – no matter the places in which it will be let go. Amongst 90 obtained replies only 15 people designed the move of the falling ball correctly. Sixty two students indicated the move in a straight line, which is the other way round to the ball moving with spiral movement.
The test was conducted within a subject named “en-vironmental education”. The motive to run such test was to determine the scope of students’ knowledge on surrounding phenomena. The results of the conducted test point out to the presence of persistent explanatory theories. Assigning mistakes according to classifica-tion of the origin (introduced after Skelly, on the basis of Markowska et al., 2014) shows that they are mostly wrong ideas, which arise from inadequate patterns of reasoning on both astronomy and mechanics. They are caused by false information.
The reason of the fact that adults have abnormal (naive) conceptions is explained by Minsky (1977)
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theory of the system of frames. It points out that the knowledge which is built in mind – here concerning the phases of the Moon, the seasons, apparent move of the Sun on the sky and motion of falling objects (moving along the arc) – Is being organized on two layers – a lay-er of information received from adults and transmit-ted by media (upper frame) which for the purposes of the article I will compare to the knowledge “that”. The information from everyday observations – according to Minsky – is collected in the frames of the lower level (I call them the knowledge “how”). According to the theory of the system of frames, there is no order of the frames. Depending on needs of the explanation, peo-ple, referring to the general information (upper frame), benefit from the lower frame (as if they wanted to con-firm what they had observed). Due to the fact that some adults’ explanations (encoded in the upper frame) are not fully understandable by children, therefore creating the explanations, children select this information that is convenient for them. In practice, this type of the phe-nomenon manifests itself with tolerating the ambiguity – Piaget (1981) calls this phenomenon as the duality of states and transformations.
Let us reach once more for exploring the world by children. While observing the Moon, they categorize it in categories of the knowledge “how” (the lowest lay-er). Child notices that it changes – Moon phases (but do not put this knowledge together). However, when the child notices information from adults (and the me-dia) that there is a phenomena of the different phases of the Moon, the knowledge “that” is being included in the upper frame in children’s mind. From now on the child’s mind is trying to connect the gathered informa-tion into one. However, he stays between what is observ-able every day (knowledge “how”) with what adults are talking about (knowledge “that”). Children can see the individual phases of the Moon (know that it is the same
object) but don’t know the reason for its change. On this basis, they create the causes of the phases of the Moon through theories explaining phenomena, and create various combinations of the knowledge, “that” and of knowledge “how”. In this way, the first theories emerge.
From the conducted test we see how many adults (students) associate the phases of the Moon with the phenomenon of the eclipse (the oval of the Earth is being associated with the shape of the shadow on the Moon). Similar simple association (idea) can be seen in the context of the seasons and the apparent movement of the Sun on the sky. Simple connection of warmth with the Sun suggests that in the summer season the Earth is closer to the Sun (though in fact it is the other way around). The apparent movement of the Sun on the sky – the Sun is rising always in the East – refers to the sug-gestion, that the Sun returns to its place. Major group of students presented these explanations and proved the existence of persistent false explanatory theories prob-ably formed in the childhood.
Children explanations, which Piaget introduces in his study, can confirm that (2006, 216-219). The re-searcher asked children questions about the shape of the Moon. Younger children answered that the Moon
is formed, is born, is expanding, they passed the
anal-ogy in addition to the child development. Older chil-dren, functioning in Piaget’s nomenclature on the level of the technical artificialism, showed as the reason of the phases of the Moon, that it is buried or dug up (e.g.: – What is the Moon like – Quite round – Always? – No,
sometimes there is a half of it. – Why half? – Because sometimes it was cut. – Do you believe it? – I believe. –
Why was it cut? – To look prettier. – Who cut it? – Men. – Can the Moon become round again? – No. Later they
will go after other moons which are halves, and then will do the entire Moon; Piaget 2006, 219). Both on the first
and second level of reasoning children do not notice the
relationship between the individual phases of the Moon. Their explanations indicate that they perceive the Moon as one object which changes, but do not know the cause of the phenomena8.
Results achieved during classes with students on their understanding of Moon phases and considerations on the causes of persistent naive theories showed that they lack of experience in which they could see, experi-ence and self-check the process of phases of the Moon. Therefore, after presenting the results of the test to the students, I conducted an experiment in the field of as-tronomy. There was a model constructed, by which we could show the movement of Earth with regard to the Sun and the movement of the Moon with regard to the Earth. Using this model some experimental thoughts were conducted during which students, using basic in-formation, had to design the motion of the planets and respect the information about the Moon. After verifying the hypotheses, students could compare their conclu-sions with the visualization of the movement of planets in the computer program. After the class, the students pointed out that after creating and using the model of the solar system now they understand why in the me-dia there is information that the Earth overshadows the Moon (know that this phenomenon is an unusual phe-nomenon).
Conclusion
Despite the fact that adults have completed a long education, there is still a large convergence between mental models of children and adults about astronomi-cal phenomena. The majority of adults still have persis-tent incorrect theories explaining that arise from mis-8 Similarly children are reacting when you show them photographs
from their childhood. They do not believe that those are photos of them when they were younger (they are saying that on the photos is their younger brother or sister).
SCHOOL
SCIENCE
IN SHOR
T
conceptions. In this respect, the claim that explanatory theories need to be diagnosed at any stage of develop-ment to eliminate nonscientific explanations (Özsoy, 2012, 407-415), so that they do not hinder the acquisi-tion of the real picture of the world (including cosmos) seems to be highly valid. This is particularly important in the case of the teachers (surveyed students want to play this role in society), because the way the pre-school children’s knowledge and images will be built according to the quality of the present or future teacher’s knowl-edge.
Building a scientific picture of astronomical phe-nomena is possible among children from pre-school and school education (see: Kampeza and Konstanti-nos, 2009, 141-158). Children at this age need not only verbal explanations, illustrations in the book, globe or a of nature film – since these measures, as indicated by the study, are ineffective (e.g. some of the children treat the globe as an actual model of Earth, it is often “the second” Earth for them). Significant is the experience in which they can play a scale and the motion of the planets in the solar system. Children have a need to ex-perience the observation of astronomical phenomena, not just those that take place at night. Significant are observations of: sunspots, using a small telescope, re-cord daily observations appearance of the moon in the calendar of weather or building a small model of the planetarium (Jelinek, 2015).
Building explanatory theories by children can take place only on the basis of information collected by them. If the information acquired from outside (from the media, from adults) is greater than personal experi-ence, then the child’s mind creates theories close to sci-entific theories. However, since the information is not suitable for children receiving skills, they pick up only scraps of information. Hence, they build naive, primi-tive theories. It is essential so that experience,
observa-tion of everyday phenomena, experimenting parallel were consolidated in the well settled scientific transmis-sion coming from the adult.
As I pointed out in the article, some explanatory theories are so deeply rooted in the minds that mani-fest themselves even in adulthood (and in the case of specific professions – teacher – can endanger the next generations). The issue discussed here is so impor-tant that it can be tempting to hypothesize that there is a period in human development in which if he does not acquire basic information about the outside world (including mechanical phenomena or astronomical), then in their place naive primitive concepts will be con-structed, which later will make it difficult to acquire sci-entific theories. I emphasize: child’s mind is particularly sensitive to abstract issues, those in which it is difficult to get information directly and there are many of such in astronomy. It is therefore necessary to increase the importance of this field of education.
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