Transcript Presentation ( - 3.6mb)

What do our students really know about geophysics?
Relationship to our project
What are earthquakes? &
What causes them?
A summary of student conceptions of earthquakes and other
underpinning topics as informed by 25 years of research
July, 2006 v1.2
Michael Hubenthal, Education Specialist
Student Understandings
• Children develop their own non-scientific
explanations of events, prior to instruction (Ault,
1982, 1984, 1994; Piaget, 1929)
• Understanding; description and explanation (Newton,
2000)
Challenges to conceptual
understanding in the geosciences
(Piaget, 1929)
(Ault, 1984)
( Blake, 2005)
What is an EQ? - Young students
(Ross and Shuell, 1991; Sharpe et al., 1995)
(Tsai, 2001)
(Leather, 1987; Sharpe et al., 1995)
Conceptual shift at age 14?
(Barrow & Haskings, 1996; DeLaughter et al., 1998; Libarkin et al., 2005)
Possible
explanations for
conceptual shift
Others Explanations
Location of & relationship to EQs
(Leather, 1987; Shapre et al., 1995)
Philips, 1991; Schoon, 1992
Sharpe et al., 1995
Lillo, 1994
DeLaughter et al., 1998; Libarkin et al., 2005
Tectonic Plates
What do teachers know?
Dahl et al., 2005
Seismology as evidence
Limits of Current Practice
• What is an Earthquake?
– Descriptive vs. cause definitions
– What causes Earthquakes?
• Elastic nature of rocks
• Relation between seismicity and geologic features
• What is inside Earth?
– How do we know if we have never been?
– Complexity and boundaries
• Patterns and frequency of seismicity
• Intraplate vs edge fo plate earthquakes
• Plates and their boundaries (vertical and horizontal)
• How we know what we know
?
Implications
• A disconnect between students response about the causes
of earthquakes & actual understanding
• Previous research of children’s understanding of science
concepts shows
– express scientifically acceptable statements while maintaining
misconceptions
– recite correct concept definitions with out any understanding
• Students themselves may be aware of this disconnect
Barrow and Haskins (1996) found that 73% of
undergraduates surveyed in a Geology 101 level course,
who had not experienced an earthquake felt that they had
a limited or low understanding of earthquakes.
Discussion
• Conceptual shift at ~ age 14 on to adulthood to a more
scientific response to What is an earthquake?”
• Responses contain references to plate tectonics but often
also contained erroneous or contradictory information
• Therefore
– Existing research has done little to probe the depth of student
understanding beyond the scientifically accurate terminology in
their responses
Objectives
• Provide you with the best information
possible about what your students
probably know
• Examine what students know across a
range of ages to assess the impact of
current methods of instruction.