Developing children's understanding of the earth

¶ … individual- Children's understanding of the Earth

Teaching abstract concepts to children can be a challenging task. Without a salient or familiar representation of a non-concrete object like gravity or the earth, it would be difficult for a child to form a coherent understanding of or even sustain attention on deep principles. Hence representational objects such as artifacts, maps, models, videos, and the like are powerful tools used by educators to improve appreciation and understanding of scientific concepts. This paper analyses two theories on children's understanding of the earth, an abstract concept, and how these affect children's knowledge about the globe, the earth's representative artifact. It also discusses the implications of these findings in children's interpretation of other abstract concepts like the atom, gravity, or evolution.

Unlike other representational insights (e.g. maps, scale models, photographs) it is quite difficult for young children to link the globe to its actual referent, i.e., the earth (Callanan, Jipsen, & Soennichsen, 2002). For one, the globe is an interesting object in itself -- colorful, fun to spin, ball-bouncy -- and children have a hard time understanding that it is a symbol for something else. Second, they probably know little about the earth itself (Liben, 1999, in Callanan, et al., 2002). Studies show that 7-year-old children have difficulty understanding that the earth is a sphere and that they tend to think that the earth is flat until 10-11 years (Nusbaum & Novak, 1976; Sneider & Pulos, 1983; and Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992 in Callanan, et al., 2002). Until the earth's shape is understood, children will indeed get lost in the earth-globe connection (Callanan, et al., 2002).

There are two communities of thought regarding children's understanding of the earth's shape and other features. One is the Mental Model Theory where children are thought to construct beliefs of the earth based on their intuition (Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992/1994 in Panagiotaki, Nobes, & Banarjee, 2006). A child's intuitive constraints lead her to think that things in general are two-dimensional and are supported. This presupposes her to believe that the earth is flat (Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992/1994 in Panagiotaki, et al., 2006). The alternative view is that children's understanding of the earth is culturally communicated and theory-free; i.e., before they acquire any knowledge of the earth, they simply do not know (Siegal, Butterworth, & Newcombe, 2004 in Panagiotaki, et al., 2006).

The discrepancy between these two theories can be explained by differences in methods used by each in the assessment of children's understanding of the earth (Panagiotaki, et al., 2006). In the Mental Model Theory, children are asked to illustrate their own version of the earth by drawing or creating play dough models. Then they are asked open-ended questions about the earth, which the experimenter can rephrase or repeat if the answers are not clear to them (Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992 in Panagiotaki, et al., 2006). In the alternate theory, children are asked to choose from a series of external 3-D models which they think best represents the earth and then asked forced questions (those with alternative answers) about the earth (Siegal, Butterworth, & Newcombe, 2004 in Panagiotaki, et al., 2006).

A possible drawback of the open question style is that it requires a demanding, free recall mode of answering, something that young children may still be unaccustomed to (Panagiotaki, et al., 2006). Open-ended questions can also be ambiguous and answered either from an external or local perspective of the earth (Panagiotaki, et al., 2006). Further, repeating questions may lead to children revising their answers resulting in inconsistencies that may make interpretation difficult. Hence, drawings and open-ended questions tend to produce naive models of the earth (Panagiotaki, et al., 2006). The proponents of the theory utilizing this method argue that open-ended questions require children productive use of information they already know, unaided by an external representation of the earth (e.g. globe or any other 3-D model). Using this method, superficial (memorization-based) knowledge is eliminated. This enables the experimenters to find out whether children fully understand the information they know (Vosniadou, Skopeliti, & Ikospentaki, 2005).

Using the forced-question method, on the other hand, results in less ambiguous answers. When an external 3-D model of the earth accompanies this style, more scientifically correct responses are obtained because the model gives a cue (Panagiotaki, et al., 2006). However, most of the forced questions used by the proponents of the second theory are biased towards a spherical model of the earth (Panagiotaki, et al., 2006). So in the end, the results may not be truly representative of what children do know if the 3-D model they chose is non-spherical (e.g. flattened disk, hemisphere).

While the proponents of the Mental Model Theory agree that the use of the globe or an artifact can facilitate thinking in children, they believe it is not the only legitimate way. Apparently, the introduction of the globe may sometimes confuse children as to their ideas of the nature of the earth. In one study, many children showed inconsistencies in their opinions about the earth after they were presented with a globe, shifting from answering based on their prior knowledge of the earth and then based on the globe as they see it (Vosniadou et al., 2005). However, in that study, the children's previous experiences with the globe weren't taken into fact. It's possible that some of their prior knowledge may include information about the globe that they already know, say from school or at home.

That being said, it may never be too early to expose children to situations where she might begin to explore the dual representation nature of the globe. Even if a child hasn't reached an age where she understands that the earth is in fact a sphere, parents and teachers can lay the groundwork by talking about it in class or going to science exhibits and museums. Callanan et al. (2002) reviewed some strategies for effective parent-child conversations about representational objects, but unfortunately, most are applicable to concrete, rather then abstract concepts. However, they brought into focus the importance of social interaction within which children experience representational objects.