How children observe the Universe

Children who visited Auckland Observatory and Stardome Planetarium in 1998 were surveyed an their ideas about the Earth, the Moon and the Sun. Widespr ead misconceptions similar to those found in other studies were revealed, h owever the single teaching session had an impact on children's ideas compar able to that of much longer interventions. Several ideas not reported previ ously were expressed. For example, two children drew a figure eight orbit f or the Earth; circling the Sun during the day, and the Moon at night. Only one child of the 67 surveyed proposed the notion of day and night being cau sed by the Sun orbiting the Earth. This is in contrast to many other studie s. A drawing based pre-post survey proved to be a convenient and powerful t ool for revealing changing patterns in children's thinking. The literature surveyed indicated levels of misconceptions about astronomy among teachers and other adults that were nearly as great as those of the children being t aught. It would seem a strategic move to provide teachers with sufficient t raining if they are required to teach astronomy at every level, as has happ ened with the New Zealand science curriculum. A comparison between differen t question types suggests that multiple-choice questions may underestimate the knowledge of younger children by over 300% when compared with interview responses. A drawing based question in this study generated up to 41% more correct responses than a multiple-choice question on the same topic.