The influence of teaching on students' explanations and illustrations of the day/night cycle and seasonal changes

The paper deals with the problems of students' everyday conceptions of the day/night cycle and seasonal changes and the influence of leaching on these conceptions. Students of regular stare schools and an alternative Waldorf school were compared. Textbook analysis was carried out and 276 schoolchild ren from grades 3-9 were questioned in written form. Children's explanation s and illustrations were analyzed and compared with those found in the text books. The results showed that students need much more guidance in learning contemporary explanations of astronomical phenomena in school. It was show n that textbooks used in regular schools provide confusing and misleading i nformation that is misinterpreted by children. It was shown that regular sc hool students relied for their answers more on verbal facts taught in schoo l, but Waldorf school students gave more simple descriptive answers.