Year: 1989
Type: article
Abstract: This paper presents the results of an experiment which investigated elementary school children's concept of the earth's shape and the related concept of gravity.First, third, and fifth grade children were asked a series of factual, explanatory, and generative questions in an attempt to understand as clearly as possible the way they conceptualized the shape of the earth.An examination of the responses of individual children to these questions revealed considerable surface inconsistency.For example, many children said that the earth is round but at the same time stated that it has an edge and that people could fall down from that edge.A great deal of this apparent inconsistency could be explained by assuming that the children had formed and used in a consistent fashion various assimilatory concepts of the earth's shape, for example, that the earth is a disc, that there are two earths, one round and one flat, and that the earth is a sphere but people live on flat ground inside the sphere.We argue that children construct these assimilatory concepts in an effort to reconcile the information coming from adults that the earth is a sphere with a naive concept of a flat earth.We further interpret the presence of assimilatory models to support the hypothesis that children's concept of the earth is embedded within certain naive ontological and epistemological theories and that changing this concept requires a change of theory analogous in many respects to theory change in the history of science.Renae (1st Grade) [Response No. 3, fall off] E: Could you ever reach the edge of the earth?C: Yes.E: Could you fall off the edge of the earth?C: No. Vosniadou & Brewer Concept of Earth's Shape -15 E: Why not?C: Because once you fall off, you can't get back on
Authors: Stella Vosniadou, William F. Brewer
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1587421180