Pixel International Conferences

Keywords    misconceptions  astronomy  junior high school

When students are asked why they chose to take earth science courses in college liberal arts classes, many respond that they are interested in space and that they like to look at the stars. However, when we conducted a comprehension survey in class, we found that the systematic understanding of celestial bodies and weather learned in junior high school was insufficient, and that students could not explain the mechanisms of natural phenomena just by memorizing fragmentary names.

In addition, when students who aspire to become science teachers are asked to give a mock class in the field of astronomy and meteorology, most of them are confused because they do not know how to teach. A survey conducted by the author on college students and on junior high and high school students revealed the formation of misconceptions in the field of astronomy and meteorology, which may be caused by the compulsory education stage.

In the field of astronomy, students' understanding of the motion and visibility of celestial bodies such as the moon and planets, and the understanding of the motion of celestial bodies from schematic diagrams such as the diurnal and annual motion of fixed stars was particularly poor. In the class questionnaire, students stated that "this was my weak point in astronomy in junior high school," "I could not understand anything from this field," and "astronomy is a weak area of science.

To improve this situation, the author designed several questions based on a student misconception survey, and a teaching method in which children collaboratively explore these questions using the textbook as a tool, was found to be very effective in deep learning about celestial bodies in a junior high school class. The implementation of this method in a junior high school class has revealed that it is very effective for deep learning about celestial bodies. This time, we report on the effectiveness of this teaching method based on the results of the survey.

References

[1] Keirinkan (2020) "Mirai e hiroharu sciene 3" pp48-99

[2] Anzai, Yuki and Shiose, Takayuki (2020) "Question Design" Gakugei Shuppansha pp16-77