The concept of time: can it be fully realised and taught?

Truscott, J.; Boyle, Alan; Burkill, Sue; Libarkin, Julie C.; Lonsdale, Jo

doi:10.11120/plan.2006.00170021

Cited by 14 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…More recently, attention has focused on the inability of scientists (Brush 2001), science educators (Petcovic and Ruhf 2008), college students (Catley and Novick 2009; Libarkin 2006; Truscott et al 2006), and the general public (Hofstadter 1996) to comprehend time in billions of years. Our deficiencies involve concepts about both absolute time (time in years; Catley and Novick 2009) and relative time (events in an accurate sequence; Libarkin 2006).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Is the Age of the Earth One of Our “Sorest Troubles?” Students’ Perceptions About Deep Time Affect Their Acceptance of Evolutionary Theory

2010

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More recently, attention has focused on the inability of scientists (Brush 2001), science educators (Petcovic and Ruhf 2008), college students (Catley and Novick 2009;Libarkin 2006;Truscott et al 2006), and the general public (Hofstadter 1996) (2) Students' inability to accept an old Earth is a barrier to evolution acceptance.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is the Age of the Earth One of Our “Sorest Troubles?” Students’ Perceptions About Deep Time Affect Their Acceptance of Evolutionary Theory

2010

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“…While both are difficult, spatial scalar shifts can be supported through the use of modern tools and technologies, such as satellite images that allow us to visualize the entirety of the planet. But the concept of deep time is much more difficult to illustrate and notoriously hard to learn (Truscott, Boyle, Burkill, Libarkin, and Lonsdale, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

‘How Could the Dinosaurs Be So Close to the Future?’: How Natural History Museum Educators Tackle Deep Time

Hecht¹,

Knutson²,

Crowley³

et al. 2019

Curator The Museum Journal

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Natural history museums play an important role in engaging the public in critical conversations about science and society. However, understanding complex concepts such as the Anthropocene requires thinking at large spatial and temporal scales. This challenge is at the forefront of a research‐practice partnership between the Carnegie Museum of Natural History (Museum) and the University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out‐of‐School Environments (UPCLOSE). Together we designed a tool to help museum educators engage visitors in conceptualizing and connecting deep time with pressing environmental concerns. We observed educators using the tool in two settings: summer camp and on the Museum floor. We then interviewed educators to understand how they frame learning goals for understanding deep time and how their strategies support learner connections to the Anthropocene. While the tool was generally well received by educators, our observations and interviews also revealed two fundamental tensions. One tension was in pedagogical approaches – either inquiry or transmission – and the other was in learning goals – either wonder or relativity. Going forward, the Museum plans to use the tool both for exploration of deep time and as a professional development tool for Museum educators to better balance their use of these different approaches.

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“…Two of the more difficult threshold concepts that students encounter in geology are the scale of geologic time and the difference between absolute and relative dating (Truscott, 2006). Previous studies indicate that when it comes to the geologic timeline itself, college students often put events in the correct order (or close to it), but generally have problems determining how far apart events occurred in time (Libarkin et al, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in Geologic Time Understanding in a Class for Preservice Teachers

Teed¹,

Slattery²

2011

Journal of Geoscience Education

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The paradigm of geologic time is built on complex concepts, and students master it in multiple steps. U Concepts in Geology is an inquiry-based geology class for pre-service teachers at Wright State University. The instructors used the Geoscience Concept Inventory (GCI) to determine if student understanding of key ideas about geologic time and Earth history changed between the first and last day of the course. For three of the four GCI questions analyzed in this study, the number of correct student responses increased significantly between the pre-test and the post-test, indicating that many of the students were learning the concepts being tested. Our analyses indicates that for two of the GCI questions, certain incorrect pre-test choices were more likely to give way to correct post-test answers than others. For example, on a question about timelines, students who chose the answer that gave a correct order of events (incorrectly scaled) on the pre-test were more likely to switch to the correct answer on the post-test than students who chose an answer with both an incorrect order and scale on the pre-test. These results imply that some misconceptions are more likely than others to grow into a correct understanding. Misconceptions that consist of multiple incorrect ideas may require more time and effort to replace than simpler ones.

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The concept of time: can it be fully realised and taught?

Cited by 14 publications

References 12 publications

Is the Age of the Earth One of Our “Sorest Troubles?” Students’ Perceptions About Deep Time Affect Their Acceptance of Evolutionary Theory

Is the Age of the Earth One of Our “Sorest Troubles?” Students’ Perceptions About Deep Time Affect Their Acceptance of Evolutionary Theory

‘How Could the Dinosaurs Be So Close to the Future?’: How Natural History Museum Educators Tackle Deep Time

Changes in Geologic Time Understanding in a Class for Preservice Teachers

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