The Development of Student Conceptions of the Earth-Sun Relationship in an Inquiry-Based Curriculum

Salierno, Christina; Edelson, Daniel C.; Sherin, Bruce

doi:10.5408/1089-9995-53.4.422

Cited by 15 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…The fact that the earth rotates along a tilted axis is what causes the seasonal temperature variation, as it affects the angle of incidence of solar energy that travels to the sun. Teaching this is a challenging endeavor (Salierno, Edelson, & Sherin, 2005; Willard & Roseman, 2007). Although it requires a great deal of thoughtful planning, instruction can be effectively designed to help students learn this content, as illustrated recently by Hsu (2008).…”

Section: Motivation For the Present Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

How different variants of orbit diagrams influence student explanations of the seasons

Lee

2010

Science Education

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ABSTRACT:The cause of the seasons is often associated with a very particular alternative conception: That the earth's orbit around the sun is highly elongated, and the differences in distance result in variations in temperature. It has been suggested that the standard diagrams used to depict the earth's orbit may be in some way responsible for the initial appearance and overall maintenance of this incorrect conceptualization; the elongated shape of the orbit is thought of as a conceptualization cue that invites a fairly predictable way of reasoning. To test whether that is indeed the case, six variants of diagrams depicting differently shaped earth orbits around the sun were presented to 652 ninth-grade students in the United States. From responses to a written assessment, students' ideas about what caused the seasons were identified and analyzed. Elongation of orbit did not appear to have an effect, and there was no reinforcement effect for students who initially believed in an elongated orbit. Additional analyses show instead that other features in the diagrams can instead be more influential as conceptualization cues, such as shading or overlapping shapes, but these cues' influence on student reasoning depend on which other cues accompany them.

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Section: Motivation For the Present Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

How different variants of orbit diagrams influence student explanations of the seasons

Lee

2010

Science Education

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“…Several studies have shown that accurately explaining the cause of the seasons is challenging for both children and adults (Atwood & Atwood, 1996;Parker & Haywood, 1998;Sadler, 1992;Trumper, 2001a;2001b, 2001c. Salierno, Edelson, and Sherin (2005) conducted a case study with three fifth-grade students of how the knowledge of the seasons changed after participating in an in-depth investigation about the earth's surface temperature. The instruction, which focused on the angle of the sun's light and the tilt of the earth, helped the students achieve a partial understanding of the seasons but they retained some of their initial alternative ideas.…”

Section: Development Of the Sun's Path Concept: Grades 4-5mentioning

confidence: 99%

Students’ Development of Astronomy Concepts across Time

Plummer¹

2008

Astronomy Education Review

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“…Because our goal in this chapter is to illustrate rather than report complete findings, we are only presenting one of three case studies that we developed as part of this study. Salierno, Edelson, and Sherin (2005) present all three cases and a detailed analysis of the misconceptions literature that is relevant to Planetary Forecaster. In this case study, we present a detailed description of the state of Alice's (a pseudonym) understanding of the differential heating of the Earth at different latitudes due to the angle of incidence of solar radiation.…”

Section: Selected Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

<italic>Engineering geosciences learning experiences using the</italic> Learning-for-Use <italic>design framework</italic>

Edelson¹,

Pitts²,

Salierno³

et al. 2006

Earth and Mind: How Geologists Think and Learn About the Earth

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In this chapter, we consider the design of learning experiences in the geosciences. Recognizing that too often, educational experiences do not lead to understanding that the learner can draw on when it is relevant, we focus on learning that leads to usable understanding. We use the analogy of engineering research and development to describe the way we have applied findings from cognitive science research to the design of geosciences curricula. We present a design framework based on research in cognitive science that offers guidelines for the design of learning activities that motivate learning and provide learners with opportunities to apply what they are learning. We illustrate the design framework with an example of a middle school curriculum focusing on the relationship between physical geography and climate. We also present strategies for conducting formative evaluations of curriculum and describe how we use them to iteratively refine a design.

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The Development of Student Conceptions of the Earth-Sun Relationship in an Inquiry-Based Curriculum

Cited by 15 publications

References 15 publications

How different variants of orbit diagrams influence student explanations of the seasons

How different variants of orbit diagrams influence student explanations of the seasons

Students’ Development of Astronomy Concepts across Time

<italic>Engineering geosciences learning experiences using the</italic> Learning-for-Use <italic>design framework</italic>

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