Embed Size (px)
Citation preview
1
The Handbook of Research on Science Education
Chapter …
“Learning Earth Sciences” Authors: Nir Orion and Charles R. Ault, Jr.
1. Introduction Great news! I’ve just been accepted into graduate school in geology with the opportunity to work on a terrific research project. Among other opportunities and challenges, the professor I’ll work with would like someone to do a photographic survey of the Lower Colorado River along the same route as traversed by an expedition of 150 years ago and documented in journals and watercolor paintings. The aim is to compare habitats and channels today with those from the past within the context of reconstructing climate trends in western North America. The work would be very similar to what I did in Argentina on my fellowship last year, where I visited Charles Darwin’s fossil collecting locales and compared his journal entries as well as sketches of landscapes made by the Beagle’s artist with present day photographs. I am very exited about getting started.I can’t believe that there is a project in geology so similar to what I have dreamed about doing.
--Message from the second author’s son
The indirect quotation above is from a real situation. It captures the challenges and
opportunities for graduate study in earth science that echo the themes and claims
developed in this chapter. The message is about a research opportunity and the nature of
authentic inquiry. The proposed research crosses several disciplines, though is housed in
geology and geomorphology. Extrapolations from the study have importance to
understanding climate change on different scales in time and space. The data include
works of art found in historical literature. The reconstruction of past habitats and the
extrapolation of future ones serve the public interest in terms of guiding human actions in
response to environmental change. The research has intrinsic appeal to some, social value
to many. It is an example of what earth scientists at the dawn of the 21st Century are
doing.
This example of a message from an excited new graduate student presents tangible
imagery consistent with an idealized set of characteristics tentatively proposed in this
chapter as representative of the earth sciences. Section 1, “Distinctive characteristics,”
2
introduces these features, suggesting that they are features of earth sciences with
particular importance for teaching and learning. There follows a profile of earth science
education worldwide, including trends evident over the past twenty-five years. This
profile focuses on significant reforms in geosciences education undertaken at the very end
of the 20th century: the trend away from disciplinary-based science education towards an
integrative, environmentally-based, earth systems approach, in part a consequence of
profound expectations for the science K-12 curriculum stemming from the “Science for
All” movement.
“Learning earth sciences,” Section 2 of this chapter, continues with careful
attention to the empirical record of learning earth sciences in schools. Section 2 identifies
the main characteristics of earth science education in the schools, such as the integration
of subjects within earth sciences and between earth sciences and environmental education.
Section 2 then proceeds to examine the cognitive aspects of learning earth sciences:
misconceptions, spatial visualization, temporal thinking, and systems thinking. This
section ends by reporting on the integration of learning environments within the earth
sciences and the prospects for cultivating environmental attitudes and insights from
learning earth sciences. The learning environments reviewed are: the outdoor and indoor
classrooms, the earth science laboratory, and the virtual world of computer environments.
Today’s ambitious reform agenda guided in general by the principle of “science
for all” and in particular by a theme of “citizen science” within earth and environmental
education scaffolds Section 3. Here the concern becomes how well, or how poorly,
teachers have adapted to calls for changing their philosophies of teaching: their
instructional goals, content priorities, value contexts, and teaching practices. Section 3
deals with the difficulties of reforming earth science education for science teachers who
have limited content knowledge and who may lack motivation to deal with new priorities
among subjects, unfamiliar learning environments, and changes in teaching strategies.
The chapter concludes with by challenging researchers to study teaching and
learning in the earth sciences not only as historically practiced in the traditional sense of
disciplinary based curriculum, but also as increasingly practiced, according to emerging
idealizations, as integrated study. The conclusion acknowledges that, from a research
3
perspective, we know very little about teaching and learning earth sciences when they
have been thoroughly contextualized: for example, in the context of inquiry about changes
in the climate of western North America. Such contexts value knowledge for the sake of
making public policy, not only theory-building and model-testing within the earth
sciences. Such contexts find promising data not only in records of sediments, but also in
historical photography, journals, and art. The chapter ends, in effect, with the challenge to
the next generation of researchers of learning earth sciences to embrace ambitious
integration and social contextualization as essential features of the subject. At the same
time, we make the call to preserve distinctive characteristics of the earth sciences when
setting objectives for student learning. 1.1 Distinctive characteristics
Evaluating the stature, role, and distinctiveness of learning earth sciences faces
difficulties largely avoided in the physical and life science fields that dominate science
education and research about teaching and learning sciences. There are any number of
historical reasons for its perceived low status and an equal number of reasons to call for
elevating its stature within the context of science education for all. More immediately,
there is a need to characterize the crucial features of the earth sciences adequately and
appropriately for the purpose of setting limits on the scope of research about learning
earth sciences for this chapter.
Every subject has something important to offer science for all. Much of the
challenge to curriculum designers intent upon reaching the goal of science for all is one
establishing priorities. There are limits on time, resources, and cognitive development that
must be respected. To begin this process, we suggest focusing on those features of the
field deemed important to organizing teaching and learning. These features ought to
encompass (1) an “intellectually honest” (Bruner, 19xxx) portrait of what scientists do
(e.g., date rocks radiometrically) and know as well as (2) ideas with high “conceptual
worth” (Toulmin, 19xxx) that have advanced thinking and solving problems through time
(e.g., the law of superposition). The host of individual fields that comprise the earth
sciences and the need to integrate these subjects within schools makes characterizing their
distinctive features imperative. Furthermore, characterizing crucial features of a subject
4
begins the process of determining its distinctive potential to make contributions to science
learning for all. The question is, “What’s so important to learn from earth science
Let us emphasize this notion of “distinctiveness” on four levels: disciplinary,
psychological, pedagogical, and socio-historical. Characterization of the crucial features
of a subject begins with attention to phenomena of interest (history of the earth, for
example) that are distinctive to the discipline, then turns to cognitively distinctive
challenges for learning these phenomena (psychological misconceptions about geologic
time, for example). Approaches to pedagogy must demonstrate their responsiveness to
such distinctive cognitive challenges (making use of outdoor learning or field study, for
example). The endpoint for characterization of a subject’s distinctive potential is
consideration of its social and historical context: how knowing about climate change and
its scale may matter in the personal and social lives of citizens, for example. Derived most
explicitly from the geosciences, the use of the label “earth sciences” encompasses a host
of fields and subfields in geology, hydrology, oceanography, meteorology, climatology
and even astronomy. Clearly, a definitive characterization of the crucial features of the
earth sciences remains well beyond the scope of this (and perhaps any other) chapter.
Nevertheless, there are heuristically useful questions to pose in the search for distinctive
features of the earth sciences. These features, to repeat, are ones useful to curriculum
design, framing the scope of research about teaching and learning earth sciences, and
promoting science for all. For this chapter our questions are:
1. What are the earth sciences about?
2. What distinctive features of earth science education merit the attention of
researchers and curriculum authors?
1.1.1 What are the earth sciences about?
Simply everything beneath our feet and above our heads, with concern as well for
how our collective actions fit within these realms. They are about all of the phenomena
addressed by an extensive array of disciplines as well as about how these different
disciplines understand the same phenomena from different perspectives. To learn about
the earth sciences is to learn about complex systems on many scales in time and space,
about the interactions of these systems with each other and us with them. Such a
Comment: I suggest to ommit this paragragh from two reasons: 1) We say it later in several places so if we have to cut this won't cause any harm. 2) I am not sure that I can collapse ES to a one ward and if I had to do I am not sure that I would chose scales.
Comment: I think that we can omit this section since by pointing on the distinctive features we also say in what we are differ. Since we have to cut this is a place that I feel that cutting causes no harms.
5
characterization unifies, to an important degree, the common concerns of the several earth
science disciplines.
Daunting as this opening assertion may seem, the task of characterizing learning
earth sciences is not intractable. The earth sciences are both similar to and distinct from
other fields of science.
1.1.2 What distinctive features of earth science education merit the attention of
researchers and curriculum authors?
In part, the history and philosophy of science, when turned toward the
examination of geological explanations in general and the concept of geologic time in
particular, reveal characteristic features of thought in the earth sciences (xxx Kitts, Gould
from American Scientist, Ault from JRST, refs. From Dodick, and Drifting Continents,
Shifting Theories—with its bibliography to check.) In part, the psychology of learning
earth science concepts unveils what is cognitively distinctive about this field (or set of
fields) as well.
This sense of duality—similar to, yet distinct from other disciplines; resembling
these fields in some important ways, but differing in other, perhaps even more important
respects—permeates not only research about learning the earth sciences but also the
explanatory approach to many earth science problems themselves. This strategy of
compare and contrast has proven essential to forming understandings of earth’s complex
features and systems that have resulted from long and complex histories. Indeed, Gould
has characterized approaches to problem solving in geology, paleontology, and evolution,
from Lyell and Darwin forward, as a distinctive historical style of argument and
explanation in science (Gould, American Sci. 19xxx cite here). The objects of
explanation—e.g., mountain building, ice age onset, seafloor topography, storm
generation, magma distillation, planetary coalescence, earthquake frequency—have
unique histories. As a consequence of individual history, each example of a basic category
has, at some level of resolution, features distinct from other examples of the category.
This insight into the nature of categorization of rocks, volcanoes, river deltas, clouds,
moons, and other objects of interest to the earth (and space) sciences contrasts with the
situation easily noted in chemistry and physics, where fundamental entities come in
6
categories whose members are quite often utterly indistinguishable from each other (xxx
Ault paper may have original author to credit, eg. Hanson): protons, atoms of carbon,
electro-magnetic field. At an important level, both from the perspective of the history and
philosophy of science and from the perspective of the cognitive psychology of learning
science, subjects depart from each other ontologically—in how they frame what is most
salient about reality, with consequences for its representation and analysis (xxx Driver
paper on constructivism cited here).
Quite obviously, most subjects are hybrids of theorizing and categorization, and
the distinction between fundamental entities that have complex and distinguishing
histories (for example, solar bodies) and those basic aspects of reality that differ from
each other in well-determined, rule-governed ways (for example, solar energies) refers
more properly to endpoints of a continuum, rather than to incommensurable opposites.
This acknowledgment brings us squarely to the problem of how distinctive
features characteristic of the earth sciences have particular consequences for teaching and
learning. In turn, the study of teaching and learning the earth sciences may reveal aspects
of the field that distinguish it from others. At the same time, as alluded to above, learning
earth sciences no doubt presents challenges and opportunities that resemble those
common to other sciences.
Five features (best described as “working hypotheses”) appear distinctive of the
challenges and opportunities afforded by learning earth sciences. For each of the five
features below, there appears an example adding a measure of tangibility. Indeed, these
are abstractions intended (or hypothesized) to characterize large swaths of inquiry.
Tentatively, five features of inquiry in the earth sciences useful to examining learning
earth sciences are:
1. The historical approach, pioneered by Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin, to
scientific inquiry (e.g., Darwin’s account of the reefs around coral atolls of the
Pacific: the islands as a sampling distribution across space and through time of
what happens to a volcanic island as it rises and subsides over immense,
unwitnessed durations).
7
2. The concern for complex systems acting over the earth as whole (e.g., the several
“spheres”: hydro, geo, atmos, and their interaction with the biosphere) as well as
analysis of their subsystems on more regional and local scales.
3. The conceptualization of very large-scale phenomena through time and across
space (e.g., “deep time” and the construction of the geologic time scale).
4. The need for visual representation as well as high demand upon spatial reasoning
(e.g., the role of geologic maps, contour maps, and the modeling of structures and
dynamic processes, such as ocean currents and storms, in three dimensions).
5. The integration across scales of solutions to problems (e.g., the validation of
meteor impact hypotheses with evidence gathered across scales from mineral
crystal to regional topography).
Understood in concert, particularly numbers 2 (complex systems), 3 (large scale),
and 5 (integration across scales), these abstracted, yet still quite tangible, features
distinctive of earth science inquiry, suggest themes at a more general level. The most
important of these themes stems from the realization that human action impacts earth
systems on global scales. In brief, people acting collectively have become geologic agents
and their societies can change climates across local, regional, and global scales. Human
communities consume earth resources and depend upon earth systems for the disposal of
wastes. Too obviously, degradation, scarcity, and pollution reach levels that threaten
human communities or interfere with vital “ecosystem services” that undergird
agricultural productivity, maintain habitat and biological diversity, clean both air and
water, and ameliorate climatic variation. Hence, there would appear to be no clear or
useful demarcation between learning earth sciences and learning environmental sciences.
In conclusion, learning earth sciences has distinctive challenges and opportunities.
These begin with attention to the historical methods of inquiry pioneered at the dawn of
geology and continue through appreciation of visualization to data representation and
reasoning. The concept of scale permeates historical methods and visualization tasks, both
as an obstacle to cognitive insight (phenomena happening on vast scales, well beyond the
purview of human experience) and an arbiter of convincing explanation (solutions to
problems on different scales must cohere). When geologic scale and historical complexity
8
are combined with basic ideas from physical and life sciences, earth systems thinking
emerges, with attention to dynamism on global scales of interest. These distinctive
features of the subject (useful as hypotheses defining the range of what constitutes
learning earth sciences, starting from the unrestricted premise that their domain is
everything under our feet and over our heads) combine to produce a whole that is more
than the study of a branch of science. It is a field of learning inseparable from
environmental issues and sciences, with implications for preparing citizens of
democracies for lives of social responsibility.
Our claim is not that this profile of what makes learning earth sciences distinctive
belongs exclusively to learning earth sciences; all disciplines would hopefully make claim
to holding implications for the preparation of citizens for lives of social responsibility in
democratic societies to one degree or another. The point is simply that the general themes
of interdisciplinary study, multidisciplinary study, environmental issues, and relationship
to social responsibility, invariably lie close to the surface when undertaking to learn earth
sciences. Moreover, this immediate relevance to social responsibility, this holism, is,
along with less general and more tangible features such as scale (in two senses: large
scale and crossing scales), historical method, visualization, and systems thinking, an
additional distinctive feature of learning earth sciences. Taken together, the several
working hypotheses about distinctive features of earth sciences—from cognitive
challenges such as visualization, through thinking in terms of dynamic systems, to a
profile that stresses stewardship and citizenship—make for a daunting, yet not intractable,
challenge of characterization.
1.2 Shifting profiles The stature and role of learning earth sciences in keeping with the goal of science
for all has shifted in recent decades. Examples of this shift exist worldwide and these
examples answer questions such as: 1. What status does and should earth science occupy in school science?
2. How has the profile of earth science education changed in recent decades?
3. What does learning earth sciences, when linked to environmental education, offer
as part of science education for all?
9
1.2.1 What status does and should learning earth sciences occupy in school science?
At the level where distinctions between earth and environmental sciences melt
away, there arises another general theme of extraordinary importance: the conduct and
understanding of sciences in social (therefore value) contexts. Because the domains of
earth sciences so demonstrably coincide with environmental issues, this branch of science
education is preeminently and necessarily multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and
holistic. This holism encompasses social sciences and humanities as well: the concept of
value and the ethics of caring about the human condition being well addressed within
these fields. The sciences often strive to remain rather silent and noncommittal on the
nature of moral agency and ethical behavior. Yet without knowledge gained from the
sciences, social systems for setting policy and personal decisions about life style
inevitably must blunder. Citizens with knowledge of earth sciences clearly have some
capacity to choose (or hold leaders accountable for choosing) policies in light of their
consequences for earth systems, and therefore, of the potential for society to exist in
profitable harmony with earth resources.
The time has come for science education to situate itself squarely within the
educational conversation about social justice, poverty and wealth, sustainability, and the
human condition (xxx cite NSES content strand, Science in Personal and Social Lives).
This conversation is at the same time one about the nature of democratic institutions for
governing the use of earth resources and impacting earth systems. Because the features
distinctive of the earth sciences so clearly align with and contribute to these aims, it is a
domain of science learning at the cusp of citizenship, a context for learning attitudes
about the role of science in society.
1.2.2 How has the profile of learning earth sciences changed in recent decades?
In many respects education in earth sciences has, in fact, converged upon
environmental education in nations around the globe, as idealized in the preceding
paragraph. In addition, changes in curriculum have often treated the subject more from the
perspective of integration and systems (holism) rather than from the perspectives of
separate disciplines (reductionism). However, the infusion of earth science topics within
the educational system is still a long and complicated task. Comment: it seems to me that reading is more fluent without this section.
10
Reductionist philosophy has historically constrained the introduction of earth
sciences within school science curricula because the importance accorded by reductionist
philosophy to the disciplines of physics, chemistry, and biology. Reduction of science
literacy to competence within these three fields has allowed relatively limited time for
learning earth sciences. The reductionist or disciplinary paradigm works reasonably well
in keeping with the goal of science education as a preparation of a nation’s new
generation of scientists. From the perspective of science for all, it has serious limitations.
The shift towards a science for all paradigm has placed the earth sciences in a
better position within the science curricula of several countries (for example, Israel,
Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States). In 1990, the American Association
for the Advancement of Science published the document Science for All Americans
(AAAS, 1990). This document, a part of the AAAS Project 2061, calls for major reforms
in relation to the goals and teaching and learning strategies of science in schools. The
new “science for all” paradigm perceives the main goal of science education in schools as
a preparation for the nation’s new citizens. Science for All Americans, in essence, defined
minimal levels of scientific literacy for all sciences by outlining objectives for all K-12
students. The Benchmarks for Science Literacy (AAAS, 1993), which followed the
Science for All Americans, document advocates a balance between scientific knowledge,
the processes of science, and the development of personal-social goals (Bybee & Deboer,
1994). The United Kingdom has adopted a similar approach in the new National
Curriculum for England and Wales (Department of Education and Science [DES], 1989).
This new paradigm, which has rapidly influenced other nations all over the world,
gives the earth sciences topics a more central status among the other topics of the science
curricula (Tomorrow 98, 1993). Nations, in part influenced by the socio-political “Green”
movement, have accepted that one of the tasks of science education in schools is to
develop environmental awareness and insight among future citizens. From this point of
view, there is confidence that by studying the earth sciences children might develop such
an understanding.
Another movement influencing the profile of earth sciences education in schools
is the shift from direct instruction towards constructivist pedagogy (Novak teach for
11
understanding xxx, Driver xxx constructivist paper, Driver, Guesne & Tiberghien, 1985;
Osborne & Wittrock, 1985; Bezzi, 1995). The constructivist approach acknowledges that
individuals must construct new understandings in light of personal experience and private
meanings. Constructivists, such as Driver (19xxx), recognize, in addition, the importance
representations of reality (models, diagrams, equations, category systems) play within the
epistemology of a subject. Learners must assume personal responsibility to construct
these representations and compare their thinking with that of others while in pursuit of
the goal of “achieving shared meaning” (Gowin, 19xxx). A constructivist might ask, “Is
the concept adequate to the purpose it serves?” rather than “Is the idea true?” From a
constructivist standpoint, pedagogy ought to engage students in learning meaning through
the use of concepts rather than expecting them to learn ideas simply from listening to
lectures and studying texts.
Conceptual change theory (Posner, xxx 19, Smith xxx) has also exerted a strong
influence over science teaching. Conceptual change theory recognizes that beliefs about
knowledge and conceptions of explanation shape student interests and efforts as they
attempt to learn science. Conceptual change theory, using historical examples of major
shifts in scientific conceptualizations, focuses on the importance of examining the
adequacy of ideas in the context of constructing an explanation or making predictions.
Ideas that are adequate resolve anomalies in plausible ways. In addition, they are
intelligible in terms of current understanding and fruitful in the creation of new
knowledge. Smith has elaborated upon conceptual change theory by describing the
understanding it fosters as “usefulness in a social context” (Smith, 19xxx). This
conception of understanding supports movement towards holistic curriculum while
respecting the disciplinary origin of an idea. The concept of sea floor spreading, for
instance, resolved anomalies in the pattern of magnetic fields recorded on ocean bottom
rocks (a pattern detected incidentally and puzzlingly during attempt to detect enemy
submarines during World War II; cite shifting theory book here 19xxx). Sea floor
spreading made plausible the notion of drifting continents; the concept has proven
enormously fruitful as a component (and precursor) of plate tectonic theory. Now,
understandings of geologic hazards due to seismic and volcanic activity depend upon
12
knowledge of plate tectonic theory. Public policy, from building codes to tsunami alerts,
has turned this knowledge into usefulness in a social context.
Problems, projects, and issues often provide a proper context for promoting
meaningful, even independent, learning. No doubt many students are exposed in their
daily lives or through the mass media to environmental issues such as earthquakes,
volcanoes, global atmospheric changes, journeying to Mars, pollution of the ocean,
sources of fresh water, energy resources, floods, hurricanes, landslides and avalanches,
and much more. These topics are contextual goldmines from a constructivist standpoint,
opportunities to engage students in the construction of meaning through the use of
concepts in personally relevant contexts.
Constructivism and holism have influenced the profile of learning earth sciences in
another and very fundamental way: the growing interest in earth systems education. Many
countries have undertaken to reform science teaching by placing greater emphasis on the
dynamic systems of the earth. These efforts are well presented through two books written
and edited by Vic Mayer: Global science literacy (Mayer, 2002) and Implementing
“Global science literacy” (Mayer, 2002). These books include works from nearly 30
authors from 15 different countries who describe the active implementation of new ideas
about geosciences education often based upon the earth systems approach. Mayer’s work
describes earth systems science as a framework for student learning very robustly.
1.2.3 What does learning earth sciences, when linked to environmental education, offer as
part of science education for all?
As previously noted, earth sciences education has shifted towards an
environmental and interdisciplinary based approach in many parts of the world. As we
enter the 21st century, the environmental perspective has gained great prominence in
western society. This development has been accelerating in view of the understanding
that present human behavior could bring destruction to many of the earth’s ecological
systems. Bybee (1993) uses the expression “the orange light has turned red” to
demonstrate how serious the problem has become. As a person entering the 21st century,
he sees the need to internalize and understand his contact with nature. He wishes to heed
the call to preserve the natural environment and to limit human damage to it.
13
Increasingly, scientific research yields understandings of how the natural systems of the
earth function. New knowledge informs us about the reciprocal relations natural systems
have with human activity. Such knowledge offers guidance to persons wishing to use
resources in an ecologically responsible manner as they improve upon their
understanding of humanity’s relationship with nature as Bybee advocates.
The trend of increased multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research within the
sciences and across science and other fields has had a conspicuous impact on the earth
sciences. For decades a new field has grown rapidly: “Environmental Geology.” This
field embraces most of the topics traditionally addressed in the earth sciences topics, but
from the perspective of the reciprocal relations natural systems have with human activity
(Tank, 1983; Pickering and Owen, 1994).
In pursuit of a very ambitious agenda intended to reorganize our perspectives of
the earth, Lovelock (1991) points out that the planet earth is composed of several
dynamic, inter-related systems. Feedback loops linking these systems suggest for
Lovelock that the earth functions holistically as a super-organism, at least metaphorically
if not empirically. He states that only by developing a multi-dimensional perspective can
one understand the global picture. In this light, he proposes that environmental research
should be carried out with a multi-disciplinary, holistic approach, as opposed to the
reductionist approach in which scientists specialize in a specific narrow field and fail to
interpret their research within a wider, more holistic context.
Apart from the nearly self-evident proposition that any phenomena can (and
should) be understood from multiple perspectives, there remains the issue of holism
versus reductionism to resolve. Multiple specializations applied to solving a particular
problem may yield to multiple ideas about its solution. Multi-disciplinary, however,
might still mean reductionism—reductionism repeated many times in many ways. Calls
for holism in explanation and for understandings adequate to the task of interpreting
complex systems go beyond calling upon multiple disciplines. Something categorically
different is called for: hierarchical thinking.
There is no need to see holistic and reductionistic approaches in opposition to
each other, though they certainly may be in competition. They are best conceived of as
14
being related through a hierarchy consisting of different levels of organized ideas
responsive to different levels of observation (Ahl and Allen, 19xxx). Explanations for a
phenomenon are typically cast in a language quite different from the one used for an
initial description and hence at a different level of organized ideas. Lower levels offer
explanation in terms of entities more fundamental and universal than the phenomenon in
need of an explanation. Higher levels place the phenomenon of interest in a context that
aids interpretation and indicates it significance.
“Lower” in this sense means translation of the initial description into a new set of
terms proven successful in achieving an explanation; lower implies analysis in terms of
interacting components and their properties. Lower, in effect, means a reduction of the
description of the complex problem to the simplified terms of explanation. These
explanatory terms often have wide generality and usefulness across a range of
phenomena (for example, the application of classical, Newtonian mechanics to problems
of motion).
Interpreting the significance of a phenomenon means placing it in context at a
higher level of description. In addition, thinking hierarchically means giving credence to
the idea that there can be increasing complexity to phenomena. Patterns of interaction
may emerge at higher levels of observation that are not reducible to existing explanatory
terms from a lower level. Thinking responsive to the need to account for emergent
patterns (complexity) may add levels to the hierarchy. This simplified summary of
Hierarchy theory simply underscores the argument that not all that is interesting can be
satisfactorily accounted for with ideas from chemistry and physics; there is more to earth
science (and life science) theorizing than applying and extending basic physical science.
For example, consider the eruption of a Cascade volcano in the Pacific Northwest
of the United States. Magma forms at depth as rock melts; later, a gaseous, ash-laden
cloud bursts forth from the surface of the earth. The explanation of a particular eruption
at a reductionist level depends upon an analysis in terms of geophysics and geochemistry.
Reductionism casts the event in a set of terms (chemical composition, temperature,
pressure, phase change) completely different from those that describe the event itself
(melted rock and ash cloud). The eruptive events, in part, result from phase changes
15
caused by changes in chemistry, pressure and temperature. Measurements of these
fundamental properties replace descriptions of appearance as the analysis proceeds
towards a satisfactory explanation.
Perhaps a massive landslide ensues. Slope failure translates into the conversion of
potential energy to kinetic energy. The reductionist terms (temperature, pressure, phase
change, potential and kinetic energy) do not narrow the analysis. They abstract the
phenomena into formal categories with extraordinarily wide utility—a framework that
works in many contexts where explosive forces operate, volcanic or otherwise. However,
the reductionist path does not bear completely satisfactory fruit.
At the same time, understanding the eruption of a Cascade volcano demands
placing the eruption in a more general, geological context. Cascade volcanoes form an arc
running parallel to a subduction zone at the convergent boundary of the North American
continental and Juan de Fuca oceanic plates. Volcanic arcs themselves call for
explanation and the terms of the explanation are found in plate tectonic theory. This
theory, in turn, is the context that provides significance and interpretation for the eruption
of a Cascade volcano. In briefest terms, a physical imbalance of pressure resulting from
phase change and friction produces magma and causes an eruption (reductionist
explanation); at the same time, plate boundaries are recognized as likely zones of
volcanic activity (contextual interpretation) and this interpretation extends the idea of
cause. In terms of Hierarchy theory (Ahl & Allen, 19xxx; Allen & Hoekstra, 19xxx),
good understanding requires analysis in terms of both higher and lower levels of
observation, with different properties subject to measurement, categorization, and
representation at each level.
Ahl and Allen define a “complex system” as one in which fine details are linked
to large outcomes” (19xxx pp. 29-30). Any system is complex or simple depending upon
whether it is understood in terms of fine details being linked to large outcomes or in
terms of disaggregated parts whose interactions are unambiguous and not subject to the
fine detail/large outcome criterion. Complexity resides both in the nature of the
phenomena and in the explanatory commitment of the observer, for any system may be
observed on a number of levels:
16
In order to describe adequately a complex system, several levels need to
be addressed simultaneously. Levels may be ordered according to the scale
at which each operates, and scale of observation is fixed by the
measurement protocol. Complexity therefore involves relating structures
and processes that are observed at different scales. Reductionism deals
with complexity [sic] by narrowing [the] focus on systems parts so closely
that they are forced to appear simple, at least when disaggregated. By
focusing on issues of scale, levels of organization, levels of observation,
levels of explanation, and relationships between these levels, hierarchy
theory offers an alternative to mechanical, reductionist approaches to
complex systems. (Ahl & Allen, p. 30).
We suspect that as the ideas of Hierarchy theory make inroads into the sciences,
there will be profound implications for what science for all becomes. Earth systems and
ecosystems are clearly domains where ideas of scale, levels of organization, and levels of
explanation hold salience. Hierarchy theory underscores the importance of high level
characterization of phenomena (holism) together with the value of low level ones
(reductionism) to meaningful understanding. Combined with constructivist paradigm, the
key question for good explanation becomes, “Are the levels of the hierarchy adequate to
the need for understanding?” The implication for pedagogy is that context matters just as
much as mechanistic explanation.
Systems thinking, hierarchy theory, holistic explanation, and attention to scale and
complexity bind learning earth sciences and environmental sciences at an abstract level.
This is an ambitious agenda for science for all. Indeed, the environmental imperative has
achieved a central position in the field of earth science education. Several publications
that appeared during the 90’s (e.g., Mayer and Armstrong, 1990; Brody, 1994; Mayer,
1995 and Orion, 1996) stated that one of the advantages of studying the earth sciences is
the development of environmental awareness and insight. Earth sciences offer the
student—the future citizen—the knowledge and the ability to draw conclusions regarding
issues such as: conservation of energy and water as well as proper utilization of global
resources. In addition, the teaching of earth sciences may raise students’ awareness of
17
what is happening around them, in their local environment, in their country, and in the
world. Likewise, students who understand the environment in which they live and the
processes taking place in it might better know how to preserve it and how to behave
within it. They could develop better tools to judge and evaluate the changes taking place
in their environment.
1.2.4 Earth system science
In the first international conference on earth science education, which convened in
1993 in England, the proposal to reinforce the environmental aspect of earth science drew
widespread support from the participants (Carpenter, 1996; Orion, 1996; Mayer, 1996).
The title of the second international conference on earth science education, which
convened in 1997 in Hawaii, was: “Learning about the earth as a system” (IGEO, 1997).
Orion and Fortner (2003) suggested the “Earth systems approach” as a holistic
framework for science curricula that integrates earth science education together with
environmental education. It was suggested that the starting point for this integrated model
is the natural world, which is understood by studying the four earth systems: geosphere,
hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere. The study of each subsystem is organized
around geochemical and bio-geochemical cycles including the rock cycle; the water
cycle; the food chain; the carbon cycle; and energy cycles (which are included in all of
these cycles). The study of these cycles also emphasizes the relationships between the
different subsystems via transitions of matter and energy from one subsystem to another
(based on laws of conservation). Such natural cycles should be discussed within the
context of their influence on people's daily life, rather than being isolated to their specific
scientific domains. People are introduced in this model as unique, but integral parts of the
biosphere. There are many differences, of course, between people and other organisms;
this model emphasizes two of these: People's ability to produce tools, which is termed
technology, and People's natural curiosity and ability to investigate his environment,
which is called science. There is a close relationship between these two characteristics—
science and technology—as the progress of one contributes to the development of the
other. This model also connects the natural world and technology together, since all raw
materials originate from the earth systems (predominantly from the geosphere and
18
biosphere). The connection between man-made materials and the natural systems of the
earth closes this cyclic model. This connection symbolizes environmental quality, which
is profoundly effected by technology.
The cyclic aspect of the model emphasizes the understanding that society is a part
of the Earth's natural system and thus any manipulation in one part of this complex
system might adversely affect people. It is important to note that, in opposition to the
current models for teaching science, this model does not utilize physics or chemistry as
the basis of the curricular sequence. Instead, this model suggests that science studies
should start from the concrete world and utilize physics and chemistry as tools for
understanding science at a deeper and more abstract level.
The development of such new environmental-based science curricula includes the
definition of educational goals and objectives. The main educational goal is the
development of environmental insight, which includes the following two principles:
We live in a cycling world that is built upon a series of sub-systems
(geosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere) which interact through
an exchange of energy and materials;
Understanding that people are a part of nature, and thus must act in harmony
with its laws of cycling. In order to develop environmental literacy, we
develop most of our Earth science programs within a systems framework; e.g.,
The Rock Cycle; The Water Cycle; The Carbon Cycle.
Thus, it is possible to break down the broad subject of environmental insight into
a set of more focused research problems whose purposes are:
1. To determine the levels of knowledge of school students on the subject of
environment.
2. To test student understanding of the concepts of cycles and systems, as well to
identify misconceptions concerning the Earth's geo-bio-chemical cycles.
3. To explore the “deep time” concept in relation to the development of
environmental insight.
About a decade after introducing of the earth systems approach into the earth
sciences education community, Vic Mayer extended this idea further with the introduction
19
of Global Science Literacy (GSL; Mayer, 1997, 2002; 2003). His approach expands on the
argument for a new type of science curriculum for secondary schools. Instead of being
based on each of the major disciplines, as are almost all current science curricula, Mayer
argues that curricula should be conceptually organized around the “Earth System,”
including the science methodology of the system sciences, and capitalize on the cross-
cultural characteristics of science to establish greater understanding of the contributions of
all cultures. The Earth System approach indeed embodies holism in curriculum design.
Holism not only embraces the Earth System concept, but also extends learning
earth sciences into environmental domains and the context of social and political debate.
However, do scientists practice holistic science? Yes; holism exists as a basic goal of
research within the earth and space sciences community as the following example most
notably illustrates
The year 2003 witnessed in the United States the inauguration of an
unprecedented multi-disciplinary, earth and space science program of research:
EarthScope. The National Science Foundation (NSF), the United States Geological
Society (USGS), and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
together with a number of prestigious research universities have combined resources to
advance knowledge about North America’s “three-dimensional structure, and changes in
that structure, through time. By integrating scientific information derived from geology,
seismology, geodesy, and remote sensing, EarthScope will yield a comprehensive, time-
dependent picture of the continent beyond that which any single discipline can achieve.
Cutting-edge land- and space-based technologies will make it possible for the first time to
resolve Earth structure and measure deformation in real-time at continental scales. These
measurements will permit us to relate processes in Earth’s interior to their surface
expressions, including faults and volcanoes.” (EarthScope project plan 200xxx pp. 1-2)
EarthScope organizers fully expect to impact school and museum science in
substantial ways, both as an example of integrated science and a resource for real world
data. EarthScope is the preeminent example of “holistic” work in earth and space science.
Its education and outreach components are as essential as its primary investigations
20
because among its fundamental goals is achieving understandings of volcanoes and
earthquakes needed to promote public safety, commerce, and engineering.
The profile of learning earth sciences continues to shift as does the practice of
earth and space science: from isolated, disciplinary agendas, to integrated research with
outcomes of interest to the public; from separate concern for earth history and systems, to
convergence upon themes essential to environmental science and education; from less
reductionism to more holism; from direct instruction based upon text materials to
constructivist pedagogy with access to real world data.
2. Learning earth sciences
2.1 The main characteristics of the earth science education in schools Earth science education worldwide has undergone a process of revival during the
past decade. Since 1993 four international conferences on geoscience education have
been conducted in Europe, the USA, Australia, and Canada (Stow and McCall, 1996;
IGEO, 1997; IGEO, 2000; IGEO, 2003). Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, it is
well accepted among earth science educators that the overall purpose of earth science
education for ages 5-19 is to educate for citizenship rather than, or as well as, to prepare
students to become professional geoscientists. The aim is to maximize personal
development and to increase the cognitive and ethical understanding of all citizens with
respect to the workings of the global environment and the exploration for and the
exploitation of resources.
This goal will be achieved only if the very high educational potential of the earth
sciences becomes realized in schools, beginning with their potential to illustrate scientific
thinking, and continuing through several other distinctive features of these fields:
responsiveness to the importance of historical explanation, concern for complex systems,
dedication to solving problems at large and across many scales in time and space,
dependence upon spatial visualization, and convergence upon environmental study
2.1.1 Scientific thinking
The earth sciences encourage learners to be scientific detectives through the
development of intellectual and practical skills, attitudes, and methodologies that relate to
21
problem solving. Among these attributes of scientific thinking are: the role of conjecture;
the creation of multiple working hypotheses; the design of investigations; the making of
relevant observations; the development of a variety of recording skills: predicting, testing
of ideas, inferring, interpreting and the communicating of findings; induction; deduction;
and falsification.
To unravel processes that took place millions of years ago, geologists have
developed a distinctive way of thinking that involves retrospection. Geological inquiry
applies knowledge of present day processes in order to draw conclusions about the rocks
of the Earth's past. These conclusions clarify the picture of the materials, processes and
environments of past times. This particular contribution of retrospection to the students'
cognitive abilities together with the development of spatial visualization skills to an
extant that is rare in other science disciplines is almost unique to learning earth sciences
(Kali and Orion, 1996).
2.1.2 The dimensions of time and space
The earth sciences use and develop concepts common to the traditional sciences,
and some which are uniquely their own, in a conceptual framework that ranges from local
to global and involves the depths of time and the vastness of space. This large time range,
measured in millions and billions of years, and the huge spatial domains above and under
the Earth's surface are the objects of study: inner space, near space and even outer space
are involved (when comparisons with other solar and planetary systems are being
considered).
2.1.3 Environmental orientation
Today, more then ever, there is a worldwide recognition that living in peace with
our environment is more than just a slogan; it is an existential need. It is also agreed that
the understanding of each of the earth’s sub-systems and the environment as a whole is
indispensable in order to live in peace with the environment. This understanding is
actually what science all about.
Learning earth sciences has a major part to play in the environmental education of
society. It gives the students—our future citizens—the knowledge and the ability to think
about the importance and interrelationships of the lithosphere, atmosphere and
22
hydrosphere as well as subjects such as the utilization and conservation of energy, water,
and material resources.
There are two main schools of environmental studies. Both approaches examine
the interrelationships between people and the physical environment, however they differ
in their perspectives. One school is more concerned with the understanding of the
physical environment and studies primarily the five interacting Earth's subsystems or
spheres: atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere (ice), hydrosphere and lithosphere.
The other school is more concerned with the environmental hazards from the
perspective of their impacts on humanity. This approach prioritizes the interrelation
between energy and environment Human society, in this approach, is an integral part of
the systems of the earth. Technology has a dual role in the interaction between society
and environment. On the one hand, technological revolution and energy exploitation have
dramatically degraded the capacities of many ecosystems. On the other hand, new
technologies can help in limiting environmental hazards and in providing alternative
energy resources.
Most importantly, learning earth sciences may deepen students’ awareness of the
physical surroundings of their homeland and enable them to participate in an informed
way in contentious matters such as exploitation versus conservation.
2.1.4 The interdisciplinary nature of the earth sciences
The earth sciences, by their very nature, form an interdisciplinary approach to
problems (recall the example of EarthScope above). Physical and chemical processes and
principles and biological processes and environmental understanding are needed to
explain geological phenomena, both present and the past. Therefore, the earth sciences
demonstrate the practical uses of physics and chemistry in our daily life. They also have
close relationships with biological topics such as evolution, ecology and the links
between rocks, soil, flora, and fauna.
The concept of the “Earth System” provides a conceptual model for curriculum
developers to use in promoting integrated science programs (Mayer, 1995). The majority
of research efforts of all the science disciplines relate to Planet Earth. Therefore the Earth
23
System approach is perhaps the best and most appropriate focus for such integrated
science courses.
2.1.5 From the kindergarten to the high-school
By classifying the learning concepts from the “concrete to the abstract,” topics
from the earth sciences can be presented appropriately to students of all levels of ability,
achievement, and age from the kindergarten to the high school. On one hand the earth
sciences deal with very concrete phenomena that one can learn through direct interaction
in the lab and/or the field.
However, at the other end of the concrete-abstract continuum there are very
abstract phenomena and high order skills that are involved in the understanding of many
earth sciences concepts. Gobert, (2000) in her study of students’ models of plate tectonics
and the interior of the earth, demonstrated that the plate tectonics model placed high
demands upon abstract thinking. She pointed out four challenging demands of this
abstract thinking:
1. The interior of the earth and the processes that take place there are outside of direct
experience.
2. The size scale of plate tectonic processes are difficult for the human mind to grasp.
3. The time scale of geological processes is beyond the perception of the human mind.
4. Comprehension requires the integration of several different types of information,
namely spatial, causal, and dynamic information.
2.1.6 Variety of learning environments in the teaching-learning process
Teaching earth sciences allows the integration of formal teaching into several
learning environments: the classroom, the laboratory, the field, the museum and the
industrial site. Former teaching strategies, which were essentially “lectures on the
subject,” have given way to student investigative work of a wide and varied kind. These
latter strategies make facts and processes part of tangible experience and introduce
students to field research methodology (Orion, 1993; Orion & Hofstein, 1994).
2.1.7 The relevance of earth sciences to our daily life
Generally, there is widespread agreement among educators that teaching science
in relation to an individual’s daily life, and to the local environment, is a very powerful
24
teaching strategy. Understandings learned from the earth sciences directly apply to many
important aspects of life: for example, the study of natural disasters (earthquakes,
volcanic eruptions, landslides, hurricanes, sea defenses, etc.), the mining of raw materials
(potable water, coal, oil, gas, construction materials etc.), the control of energy resources
(fossil fuels, nuclear, tidal, solar etc.) and the care of the local, regional, and global
environment (e.g., the preservation of wetlands or tropical forests, the greenhouse effect,
the ozone layer, rising sea levels, etc.). Xxx add NSES standard citation here as well
2.2. The cognitive aspects of learning earth sciences. The following section describes several traditions of research about learning earth
sciences. Collectively, these studies inform those whose aims are to fulfill the educational
potential of learning earth sciences as part of science for all. We have grouped studies of
cognitive learning in earth sciences as examples of alternative frameworks research,
studies of spatial visualization, examination of temporal thinking, and investigations of
systems thinking. A synthesis of these traditions ends the section on cognitive aspects of
learning earth sciences.
2.2.1 Alternative frameworks of learners concerning earth sciences concepts
The constructivist paradigm has dominated the field of science education during
the last two decades of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. The most
predominant research produced during the constructivist era no doubt has been the
extensive studies of misconceptions, preconceptions, naive ideas, and, in more general
terms, alternative frameworks of students in relation to all aspects of the science curricula.
Although there are relatively few published studies of students’ alternative
frameworks in earth sciences education, there have emerged some generalized findings
and patterns (see Ault, 1994xxx, for an earlier review of this literature and related studies
of “expert and novice” styles of solving earth science problems). At least four independent
studies have explored each of the following four areas of learning earth sciences:
1. Studies of students’ perceptions of processes and mechanisms of geospheric
change. This area includes subjects such as plate tectonics, the rock cycle,
earthquakes, erosion, etc. (Ault, 1984; Happs, 1985; Ross and Shuell, 1993; Bezzi
and Happs, 1994; Lillo, 1994; Marques and Thompson, 1997; Schoon, 1989;
25
Gobert and Clement, 1998; Stofflett, 1994; Dove, 1997; Dove, 1999; Gobert,
2000; Kali, Orion and Elon, 2003; Libarkin, Anderson, Boone, Dahl and Kurdziel,
2004).
2. Studies of students’ understanding and conceptions of the Earth’s interior
(DeLaughter, Stein, Stein, and Bain, 1998; Gobert and Clement, 1998; Marques
and Thompson, 1997; Lilio, 1994; Nottis and Ketter, 1999; King, 2000; Beilfuss,
Dickerson, Libarkin and Boone, 2004). These studies cover K-12 students’,
undergraduates, and practicing teachers.
3. Studies of students’ and teachers’ perceptions of geological deep time (Happs,
1982; Marques, 1988; Oversby, 1996; Schoon, 1989; Marques and Thompson,
1997; Noonan-Pulling and Good, 1999; Trend, 1997, 1998, 2000; Dodick and
Orion, 2003a, 2003b)
4. Studies of students’ and teachers’ perceptions of hydrospheric processes and the
water cycle (Meyer, 1987; Fetherstonhaugh and Bezzi, 1992; Brody, 1994; Barker
1998; Taiwo, Ray, Motswiri and Masene, 1999; Agelidou, Balafoutas and
Gialamas, 2001; Dickerson, 2003; Ben-zvi-Assaraf and Orion, 2004; Beilfuss,
Libarkin and Boone, 2004). A detailed analysis of the literature concerning the
hydrosphere appears later in section 2.4.
Review of the above studies indicates that children, adolescents, and adults hold
alternative frameworks in relation to almost every topic in the earth sciences. These
alternative frameworks are seen across nations, cultures, and ages. Some of these
frameworks are no doubt preconceptions that emerge as students encounter difficult
abstractions about the earth in conflict with the scale of their everyday perceptions. For
example, static views of the geosphere and groundwater are common—dynamic insights
are less common. Students overestimate the effect of external forces of the earth observed
directly at its surface and fail to appreciate the importance of the internal forces shaping
structures. They struggle with their perceptions of geological time and spatial phenomena.
Finally, they often misconceive the interior of the earth and the state of matter within the
interior of the earth.
26
As previously explained, such preconceptions are predictable; however, review of
these studies holds another striking conclusion: the same preconceptions appear across
grade levels, from kindergarten to college. These studies indicate that schooling all over
the world has influenced only in a limited way the ability of students to construct
scientifically sound conceptions of the earth, congruent rather than in conflict with
knowledge from the earth sciences.
Sadly, the literature suggests that many teachers hold the same alternative
frameworks as their students and that even text materials foster misconceptions. Thus, it
seems that earth science education in many countries is trapped in a cycle of ineffective
instruction and inadequate learning—with preconceptions and misconceptions dominating
learning earth sciences. Research studies about earth science education have the potential
to break this non-productive cycle, but only if they are integrated with curriculum design
and implementation and in keeping with the changing profile of the earth sciences (e.g.,
Earth Systems approach, integration of subjects, convergence on environmental studies).
2.2.2 Spatial visualization
Teaching and learning earth sciences at all levels relies upon spatial reasoning of
many kinds. The phenomena of interest have spatial extent on many scales. Sometimes
their geometries are simple, but exist on grand scales: spiral structures of galaxies; gyres
in ocean circulation; axes of synclinal folds. Sometimes the geometries are confusing: the
intersection of complex topography with complicated stratigraphy, for example.
Sometimes the surfaces of interest are mapped indirectly: gravitational anomalies and
magnetic fields. And most confusingly, the geometries change with time.
In addition to the phenomena of interest and their challenging geometries, there
are the representations used by earth scientists to record and study them. These
representations place demand upon spatial reasoning as well. There are contour maps of a
host of phenomena to master, from topography to pressure gradients, from glacial
thickness to stress fields. Geologic maps contour time. Maps are two dimensional
representations yet often include data about three dimensional structures. Seeing “through
the surface” to visualize three dimensional structure is indeed challenging. Sometimes,
visualization requires skill at projecting structures from three dimensions onto two.
27
Consider also that visual patterns among sedimentary rocks record in three dimensions
events through time. In geology, visual pattern is the key to unlocking temporal puzzles.
While the basic dependence of geoscientists on spatial abilities has long been
recognized (Chadwick, 1978), the geoscience education community has only begun to
explore the vast array of spatial abilities which students must bring to bear in order to
understand essential geoscience concepts at all educational levels (McAuliffe, Hall-
Wallace, Piburn, Reynolds and Leedy, 2000). These spatial reasoning abilities may, in
fact, be quite distinct from the spatial abilities commonly associated with tasks in
learning chemistry (Dori and Barak, 2001; Pribyl and Bodner, 1987), in learning physics
(Pallrand and Seeber, 1984), and in learning engineering (Hsi, Linn and Bell, 1997).
The spatial objects that are studied in the geological sciences are usually large
enough to walk in physically (the field learning environment). They can also be readily
represented by block models and more sophisticated renderings in a virtual setting. In the
earth sciences, these blocks are not only visualized, but rotated, inspected, and modified
to reflect temporal changes.
The development of an understanding of deep geologic time by students has also
been shown to be related to aspects of spatial cognition (Dodick and Orion, 2003a,
2003b). There is also evidence showing that the outdoor field learning environment
specifically enhances the ability to connect static objects in the field (e.g. layers of
sedimentary rocks) into a coherent narrative which contains an understanding of change
through time at that given location (Orion, Ben-Chaim and Kali, (1997); Riggs and
Tretinjak, 2003). Other evidence presented below suggests a strong link between key
spatial abilities as students learn to investigate field problems at more advanced levels in
geology.
Kali and Orion (1996) characterized the specific spatial abilities required for the
study of basic structural geology. To do this they developed a geologic spatial ability test
(GeoSAT), in which students were required to draw two-dimensional cross-sections of
geological structures that were represented as block-diagrams. Their outcomes indicate
that the problem-solving involved in GeoSAT require a special type of spatial
visualization which they named VPA (Visual Penetration Ability). Spatial visualization is
28
defined as the ability to create a mental image from a “pictorially presented object” and to
operate different mental manipulations on those images. The manipulations usually
referred to are mental rotation and mental translation. In contrast, the manipulations
involved in VPA are to visually penetrate into a three dimensional mental image in order
to envision two dimensional cross-sections.
Based on their findings about VPA, Kali and Orion developed Geo3D, a software
package designed to assist high-school students in developing their VPA and in acquiring
the skills needed for understanding basic structural geology (Kali & Orion, 1997). Using
four case-studies, they showed that even with a short-term interaction with the software,
students significantly improved their ability to solve the problems involved in GeoSAT.
The advantage of technology in improving learners’ capability to solve problems that
require spatial skills has also been shown by Hsi, Linn & Bell (1997) in the area of
engineering. Interestingly, these authors also indicated a relatively short time-span in
which students acquired their spatial skills using the computer-based tools involved.
The NSF-funded Hidden Earth Project (Reynolds, Piburn, & Tewksbury)
successfully investigated the role of spatial visualization in an introductory geology
course. This project developed web-based versions of three standard visualization tests
(Cube Rotation, Spatial Visualization, and Hidden Figures) and a geospatial test,
containing items of the more visual aspects of geology, such as visualization of
topography from contour maps. Reynolds and others developed innovative instructional
modules for (1) Visualizing Topography, and (2) Interactive 3D Geologic Blocks. An
experimental group used these modules, and the control group did not. Although all
subjects profited from both the control and the experimental conditions, the effectiveness
of the treatment experienced by the experimental group was confirmed using Analysis of
Variance and a comparison of normalized gain scores. Very powerful gender effects have
also been demonstrated, with the experiment equalizing the performance of males and
females in a case where the performance of males was initially superior to that of
females. The experiment also was very effective at improving scores and lowering times
to completion on the spatial visualization test.
29
As part of the Hidden Earth Curriculum Project, Reynolds, Piburn, and Clark
(2004) conducted a detailed investigation of college student’s pre-instructional
knowledge, skills, and misconceptions about visualizing topography from contour maps.
Students completed pre-tests and post-tests, and selected students were interviewed to
assess what their initial skills and strategies were. These interviews exposed several
previously unrecognized misconceptions about topographic maps, and a Topographic
Visualization Instrument was developed to see how prevalent these misconceptions were
in a broader sample of students.
When one considers spatial cognition in a geoscientific problem solving context,
one can no longer only consider the static, two dimensional representation of three-
dimensional objects so frequently used as test items in traditional spatial abilities tests,
but must also begin to examine the temporal evolution of student understanding as they
explore a real 3D object and extract a temporal history from these spatially extended
geologic features.
Field investigations and simulated field work all involve problem solving when
properly constructed using an inquiry-based structure, and the incorporation of new
information continually shapes the investigations as work on the problem progresses. The
same can be said of well-constructed classroom computer-based interventions such as the
materials in Geo3D (Kali & Orion, 1997) and Hidden Earth (Reynolds, Piburn, Leedy,
McAuliffe, Birk, & Johnson, 2002).
Studies in geoscience education for Native American students show that students
from certain cultural backgrounds more readily learn geoscience in a field setting than do
others (Riggs, 2003; Riggs & Semken, 2001). It stands to reason that there is probably
some robust connection between place-based Indigenous cultures and field-based
learning via spatial abilities. Clearly, experience plays an essential role in developing
spatial reasoning ability.
2.2.3 Temporal thinking
In the history of geology there have been two discoveries, plate tectonics and
geological time, which have literally defined the way geologists view the earth.
Geological time means the understanding (aptly termed by John McPhee in 1980 as
30
“deep time”) that the universe has existed for countless millennia, and that humanity’s
earthly dominion is confined to the last milliseconds of the metaphorical geological
clock.
The influence of geological time is felt in a variety of scientific disciplines
including geology, cosmology, and evolutionary biology (Dodick and Orion, 2003c).
Thus, any scientist or student that wants to master any of these subjects must have a good
understanding of geological time. However, after reviewing the science education
research literature, Roseman (1992, p. 218) noted that there “was next to nothing
about…how kids’ understanding of notions of systems, scale or models develop over
time.” Since that time, there have been several large-scale studies of how students
understand this concept.
In general, the studies that have been completed on how students understand
geological time can be roughly divided into two groups: “event-based studies” and
“logic-based studies.”
Event-based studies include all research that surveys student understanding of the
vast duration of “deep time” (that is, time beginning with the formation of the earth or the
universe). In such studies, the general task is sequencing a series of events (for example
the first appearance of life on earth) absolutely, along a time-line, or relatively using
picture-sorting tasks. Often in such sequencing tasks, the subject is asked to justify their
reasons for their proposed temporal order. Such studies include: Noonan-Pulling and
Good’s (1999) research on the understanding of the origins of earth and life amongst
junior high students; a similar study by Marques and Thompson (1997) with Portuguese
students; and Trends’ studies on the conception of geological time amongst 10-11-year-
old children (Trend, 1997; 1998), 17-year-old students (Trend, 2001b), as well as amongst
primary teacher trainees (Trend 2000; 2001a).
Such studies largely reflect the subjects’ knowledge of particular events and most
of them involved qualitative research (structured interviews) with small sample groups. A
survey of the science education literature indicates that there has never been a large-scale
quantitative study of older student’s (junior high to senior high) understanding of
geological time.
31
In logic-based studies, the researcher is interested on the cognitive processes
undergone by students when confronted with problems of geologic time. It might be
added that such studies are more concerned with probing the subject’s logical processes
rather than their knowledge of earth science.
This approach is seen in the work of Ault (1981; 1982) and Dodick and Orion
(2003a; 2003b) Ault interviewed a group of forty students from grades kindergarten,
two, four, and six using a series of puzzles which tested how they understood (and could
reconstruct) a series of geological strata. Based on Zwart’s (1976) suggestion that the
development of people’s temporal understanding lies in the before and after relationship,
Ault (1981) theorized that children organize geological time relationally.
Based on his findings, Ault (1981; 1982) claimed that young (grade 2-6)
children’s concept of conventional time in a logical sense (reasoning about before and
after) was no impediment towards their understanding of geologic events. Indeed, many
of the children in his test group were successful at solving puzzles involving skills
necessary to an understanding of the logic, though not the extent, of geological time, such
as superposition and correlation. Nonetheless, in the field, these same children had
difficulties in solving similar types of problems, indicating that there was little transfer
from classroom problems to authentic geological settings. Children believed rock layers
in the field to be old based upon being dark or crumbly—not based upon their position in
a series of strata.
These difficulties can be traced to Ault’s (1981) research design, which was
influenced by Piaget’s (1969) work on time cognition. According to Piaget, a young
child’s understanding of time is tightly bound to his or her concept of motion, thus, the
research problems he used were taken from physics. However, the geological science
builds its knowledge of time through visual interpretation of static entities (formations,
fossils; Frodeman, 1995; 1996). Indeed there is no reason to suggest that an
understanding of the (logical) relationships amongst strata should necessarily allow one
to both conceptualize and internalize the entirety of geological time. In contrast, it is
possible that the two forms of understanding can be studied as separate entities.
32
Dodick and Orion (2003a, 2003b) conducted a large-scale study with junior high
and high school students, which included validated, reliable quantitative tools. In this
study, geological time was divided into two different concepts:
1. A (passive) temporal framework in which large scale geological events occur.
Such understanding depends upon building connections between events and
time. In the cognitive literature this is comparable to Friedman’s (1982)
associative networks, a system of temporal processing used for storing
information on points in time. By this reasoning, an understanding of
geological time should be mitigated by a person’s knowledge of such events.
2. An (active) logical understanding of geological time used to reconstruct past
environments and organisms based on a series of scientific principles. This is
similar to the work done in logic based studies, noted above. Based on this
definition, it might seem that students unfamiliar with geology might be
unable to reconstruct a depositional system; however, in structure, geo-logic is
comparable to Montagnero’s (1992; 1996) model of “diachronic thinking.” He
defines “diachronic thinking” as the capacity to represent transformations over
time; such thinking is activated, for example, when a child attempts to
reconstruct the growth (and decay) cycle of a tree.
Montagenro (1996) argues that there are four schemes, which are activated when
one attempts to reconstruct transformational sequences. In this study, three have been
translated to the logical skills needed to solve temporal problems involving geological
strata:
1. Transformation: This scheme defines a principle of change, whether
qualitative or quantitative. In geology it is understood through the principle of
actualism (i.e. “the present as key to the past”).
2. Temporal Organization: This scheme defines the sequential order of stages
in a transformational process. In geology, principles based on the three
dimensional relationship amongst strata (ex: superposition) are used in
determining temporal organization.
33
3. Interstage Linkage: The connections between the successive stages of
transformational phenomena. In geology such stages are reconstructed via the
combination of actualism and causal reasoning.
For the purposes of this research, Montagenro designed a specialized (validated)
instrument, the GeoTAT which consisted of a series of open puzzles which tested the
subject’s understanding of diachronic schemes as applied to geological settings.
In addition, two other questionnaires were distributed to sub-units of this
population to answer questions that arose through the use of the GeoTAT: (a) a Time-
Spatial Test (or TST), which tested the possibility that spatial thinking influences
temporal thinking. (b) a Stratigraphic Factors Test (SFT) which tested the influence of
(geological strata) dimensions on students’ temporal understanding. In addition,
qualitative research was pursued in the classroom and field by studying and interviewing
students who were studying geology and paleontology as part of their matriculation
studies.
As a result of this study it was possible to construct a model of temporal thinking
with the key features that influence a subject’s ability to reconstruct geological features in
time (or “reconstructive” thinking as we term it):
1. The transformation scheme which influences the other two diachronic
schemes.
2. Knowledge, most importantly empirical knowledge (such as the
relationship between environment and rock type) and organizational
knowledge (i.e. dimensional change).
3. Extra-cognitive factors such as spatial-visual ability which influence how
a subject temporally organizes 3-dimensional structures such as geological
strata.
Amongst students who were not taking geology as part of their school program it
was seen that there was a significant difference between samples composed of high
school and 9th grade students (on the one hand) and 7th grade students (on the other) in
their ability to understand geological phenomena using diachronic thinking. This suggests
that somewhere between grades 7-8 it should be possible to start teaching some of the
34
logical principles permitting one to reconstruct geological structures. These include
complex superposition (consisting of tilted strata), and correlation (two outcrop
problems) which rely on the use of isolated diachronic schemes, as well the integrated use
of all the diachronic schemes to solve complex problems of deposition.
Moreover, this research shows that the ability to think diachronically can be
improved if practiced in the context of learning earth sciences. A comparison of high
school (grade 11-12) geology and non-geology majors indicated that the former group
held a significant advantage over the later in solving problems involving “diachronic
thinking.” This relationship was especially strengthened by the second year of geological
study (grade 12), with the key factor in this improvement (probably) being exposure to
fieldwork. Fieldwork both improved students’ ability to understand the 3-dimensional
factors influencing temporal organization and provided them with experience in learning
about the types of evidence that are critical in reconstructing a transformational sequence.
The work of Riggs and Tretinjak (2003) supports this finding. Riggs and
Tretinjak studied a non-majors course in earth science for pre-service elementary school
teachers. They were able to shows that integrated field investigations enhance higher-
order content knowledge in geoscience, specifically the understanding of environmental
change through time as read from the sedimentary rock record. Prior to the field trip
students could identify past environments from sedimentary rock, but only after
completing the fieldwork unit were they able to understand these rocks as a dynamic
temporal/historical record. This is consistent with the findings of Dodick and Orion
(2003a; 2003b) who found a correlation between the understanding of geologic time and
spatial ability, which in turn implies that well-designed geologic field work will enhance
both, even for non-majors. There currently is no comparable data of this nature for
geoscience majors, nor do we fully understand the reasons for this correlation amongst
temporal/spatial/and field abilities.
In addition to the studies mentioned above, one might add the small body of
research which catalogues general misconceptions in geology, and includes within its
parameters problems related to geological time (Happs, 1982; Marques, 1988; Oversby,
1996; Schoon, 1989). Finally, one might note those works which have focused on the
35
practical elements of teaching the scale of time (Everitt, Good and Pankiewicz, 1996;
Hume, 1978; Metzger, 1992; Ritger and Cummins, 1991; Rowland, 1983; Spencer-
Cervato and Day, 2000). Unfortunately, these teaching models have never been critically
evaluated, so they are of untested value to the pedagogic literature.
2.2.4 Systems-thinking
Current earth science education is characterized by a shift towards a systems
approach to teaching and curriculum development (Mayer, 2002). Earth science educators
call for reexamining the teaching and learning of traditional earth science in the context of
the many environmental and social issues facing the planet (IGEO, 1997). Orion (1998,
2002) claimed that since the natural environment is a system of interacting natural
subsystems, students should understand that any manipulation in one part of this complex
system might cause effects in another part, sometimes in ways quite unexpected. The
understanding of physical systems such as the earth is also based on the ability to expand
the systems’ borders and expose hidden dimensions and interactions. Viewing the
expanded system of the earth reveals how groundwater and the atmosphere interact with
the geosphere, for example. Moreover, analyzing environmental problems such as
groundwater pollution involves questions such as: What was the cause of the groundwater
pollution? What will be the outcome of the pollutants in the groundwater system? How
could humans be affected? How long will those chemicals stay within the rocks?
The ability to deal with such questions requires backwards (retrospection) and
forwards (prediction) thinking skills. Mayer (2002) emphasizes that the development of
systems-thinking about the different earth systems, i.e., the geosphere, the hydrosphere,
the atmosphere and the biosphere (including humanity), is fundamental to environmental
literacy.
Systems-thinking is regarded as a type of higher order thinking required in
scientific, technological and everyday domains. Therefore, researchers in many fields
have studied systems-thinking extensively; for example: in the social sciences, (e.g.,
Senge, 1998), in medicine (e.g., Faughnan & Elson, 1998), in psychology (e.g., Emery,
1992), in decision making (e.g., Graczyk, 1993), in project management (e.g., Lewis,
36
1998), in engineering (e.g., Fordyce, 1988), and in mathematics (e.g. Ossimitz, 2000).
However, little is known about systems-thinking in the context of science education.
During the late 90's and the beginning of this decade three studies were conducted
in the Weizmann Institute of Science in relation to system thinking as part of the field of
learning earth sciences. Gudovitch and Orion (2001) studied systems thinking in high
school students and developed a system-oriented curriculum in the context of the carbon
cycle. Kali, Orion and Elon (2003) studied the effect of a knowledge integration activity
on junior high school students’ systems thinking, characterizing students’ conceptions of
the rock cycle as an example of systems-thinking. Ben-zvi-Assaraf and Orion (2004)
explored the development of system thinking skills at the junior high school level in the
context of the hydro (water) cycle.
Gudovitch (1997) examined students’ prior knowledge and perceptions
concerning global environmental problems in general and the role of people among
natural systems in particular. Importantly, the curriculum in this study provided a means
of stimulating students to explore the carbon cycle system. Gudovitch found that
students’ progress with systems-thinking consisted of four stages:
1. The first stage includes an acquaintance with the different Earth systems, and an
awareness of the material transformation between these systems.
2. The second stage includes an understanding of specific processes causing this
material transformation.
3. The third stage includes an understanding of the reciprocal relationships between
the systems.
4. The fourth stage includes a perception of the system as a whole.
Ault (1998) referred to drawing conclusions about past events as “retrodiction” (a
term drawn from Kitts, 19xxx) as opposed to prediction. Often retrodictions follow from
observations of phenomena in present time presumed to sample what has happened
through time. The challenge is “to hypothesize an arrangement by stages for what is
observed” (p. 196). Stages stand for periods of time; hence retrodiction and stage-
inference go hand in hand. Coral atolls, arc volcanoes, and river basins are often
explained as developing through stages over time. Examples of a volcano, coral atoll, or
37
river basin at any stage of development exist in the present. Hence, place substitutes for
time in order to make retrodictions; one example is another’s future.
Kali, Orion and Elon (2003) claimed that understanding the rock cycle is exactly
such a challenge and that such a challenge requires systems–thinking. They studied 7th
grade students who participated in learning a 40-hour unit. The main challenge was to
assist students in understanding the rock cycle as a system, rather than a set of facts about
the earth’s crust. The rock cycle is a system including the crust of the earth and is
characterized by a cyclic and dynamic nature. The rocks exposed on the surface of the
earth are only a small sample in time and space of constant material transformation
within the crust, driven by geological processes (e.g., weathering, sedimentation, burial,
metamorphism, melting, and crystallization of molten rocks, uplift and erosion). The rock
cycle can be viewed as a closed system, since hardly any material was added or removed
from this system in the time involved in students’ observations. Additionally, since the
size of the reservoirs of this system was almost constant over this time scale, it can also
be viewed as a system maintaining a dynamic equilibrium.
Kali, Orion and Eylon (2003), reported that while answering an open-ended
questionnaire, students expressed a systems-thinking continuum, ranging from a
completely static view of the system, to an understanding of the system’s cyclic nature.
They suggested placing dynamic thinking (which is a critical aspect of systems-thinking)
on a continuum, in which one side represents a static view, and the opposite side
represents a highly dynamic view of the system. On top of this continuum they
superimposed a dimension of interconnectedness. In the case of the rock cycle, they
based higher, more dynamic understanding upon making connections between parts of
the system. The degree of connectedness can therefore provide as means for determining
the degree of dynamics, and vice versa. This combined continuum served as a basis for
constructing a rock cycle systems-thinking continuum. At the low end of this continuum
they located students who presented a Product Isolation Model. Students thinking in
terms of this model express a lack of connectedness between parts of the system, indicate
poor dynamic thinking, and represent a completely static view of the rock cycle system.
At the opposite end of the continuum there were the students who thought dynamically
38
about material transformation within the rock cycle and therefore demonstrated a rich
understanding of the interconnectedness between parts of the system. With such a view
students were able to grasp the holistic idea that any material in a system can be a product
of any other material and apply this insight to novel situations. Such understanding was
considered as the highest level of systems-thinking in the context of the rock cycle. We
suggest that only at this level were students able to meaningfully understand the cyclic
nature of the system.
Between these two extremes were students that indicated different degrees of
systems-thinking. Students explanations classified under the category of Process-Product
Isolation Model reflect a view with dynamics limited to very small chunks of material
transformation within the rock cycle (between specific processes and their particular
products). Disconnected Internal-External explanations were placed higher on the
continuum, because they refer to the rock cycle as consisting of two different sub-systems
(i.e., the internal and the external systems). Though viewing parts of the rock cycle as
disconnected, this thinking did allow for larger chunks of material transformation within
these sub-systems. The most sophisticated alternative incorrect model concerning
material transformation within the rock cycle was the Model Lacking Burial & Melting
Processes, in which students viewed all the material transformation within the rock cycle,
except for one link (burial and melting of rocks). Therefore, they were placed higher than
Disconnected Internal-External explanations, just below the highest level of the systems-
thinking continuum.
It is important to note that students’ alternative incorrect models of the rock cycle
described above were not interpreted as misconceptions, or naive theories, about the
earth’s crust. Rather, placing these models on a continuum reflects the view that such
models can serve as basis for developing more sophisticated models, until the highest
level of understanding the cyclic nature of the system is reached. The progression within
this continuum is considered a result of adding connections between pieces of knowledge,
leading to higher levels of integrated knowledge.
This study also indicated that with appropriate teaching, students were able to
acquire systems-thinking in the context of the rock cycle. It was found that knowledge
39
integration activities led to a meaningful improvement in students’ views of the rock
cycle, towards the higher side of the systems-thinking continuum. Students became more
aware of the dynamic and cyclic nature of the rock cycle, and their ability to construct
sequences of processes representing material transformation in relatively large chunks
significantly improved. The success of the knowledge integration activity stresses the
importance of post-knowledge-acquisition activities, which engage students in a dual
process of differentiation of their knowledge and re-integration in a systems context.
Thus, the fact that, is encouraging. The findings also indicated that the systems-based
curricula design should include two stages:
1. A gradual knowledge building stage in which each of the system’s components is
studied in an inquiry process and gradually integrated into a holistic depiction of
the system.
2. A differentiation and re-integration concluding stage, which includes the dual
process discussed above.
Ben-zvi-Assaraf and Orion (2004) used a large battery of qualitative and
quantitative research tools in order to explore the development of system thinking skills
of junior high school students who studied the hydro cycle through learning with the
"Blue Planet" Program. The pre-test findings indicated that most of the students sampled
experienced substantial difficulties in all of aspects of systems-thinking. They even
struggled to identify basic system components. They entered the 8th grade holding an
incomplete and naive perception of the water cycle. At this stage they were only
acquainted with the atmospheric component of the cycle (i.e. evaporation, condensation,
and rainfall) and ignored the groundwater, biospheric, and environmental components.
Moreover, they lacked the dynamic and cyclic perceptions of the system and the ability to
create a meaningful relationship among the system components. The phenomenon of
disconnected “islands of knowledge,” which was reported by Kali, Orion and Eylon
(2003), regarding students’ abilities to connect a set of geological phenomena to a
coherent rock cycle, was found here as well. Most of the students were not able to link
the various components of the water cycle together into a coherent network. Some of
them demonstrated an ability to create a relationship between several components, but
40
even those students were not able at this stage to draw a complete network of
relationships.
In light of the initial knowledge and cognitive abilities of the students, the post-
test findings indicated that most of the students shifted from a fragmented perception of
the water cycle toward a more holistic view. About 70% of the students, who initially
presented only the atmospheric component of the hydro cycle, significantly increased
their acquaintance with the components and processes of the water cycle. For about half
of the students, this wide acquaintance with the systems’ components yielded an
improvement in their ability to identify relationships among components within the
system. Most of the students improved their dynamic perception of the system and about
one-third of them reached the higher level of cyclic perception. A meaningful
improvement was also noticed in relation to the students’ ability to identify hidden parts
of a system.
The triangulation of all the research tools indicates that only those students who
actively participated in the indoor and outdoor activities and submitted all the knowledge
integration assignments throughout the learning process reached the higher ability levels
of identifying a network of coherent relationships and hidden components of the system.
It is important to emphasize that not all the students who were actively involved within
the learning process reached those higher levels, but all students who presented such high
system thinking abilities did submit all the knowledge integration assignments. Some of
the students who were actively involved in the learning process, but did not develop the
dynamic cyclic perception of the system, could only identify relationships between one or
two components and could not perceive the overall cyclic nature of the system.
One factor that clearly influencing this ability is cognitive difference. Since
almost any population is cognitively heterogeneous one might expect a differential
cognitive development as was found by the current study. For some, the cognitive barrier
was the ability to perceive the dynamic relationship among the system’s components; for
others the ability to organize components within a network of relationships; and for
others the barrier was the ability to make generalizations. The finding that the common
factor for all those students who crossed all the cognitive barriers was their high
41
involvement within the learning process might indicate that system thinking is not only
influenced by the initial cognitive potential of a the students, but also by appropriate
learning strategies. In other words, system thinking is a cognitive ability that can be
developed through instructional learning. These findings together with the findings of
Kali, Orion and Eylon (2003), might also suggest that such learning should be based on
inquiry-based learning both indoors and outdoors and on knowledge integration activities.
The distribution of students’ achievements with regard to the different
components of systems-thinking were classified into four groups of skills. This
classification indicated that the development of system thinking in the context of the earth
systems consists of several sequential stages arranged in a hierarchical pyramid structure.
The cognitive skills developed in each stage serve as the basis for the development of the
next higher-order thinking skills.
The first group represented 70% of the students and includes “the ability to
identify the system’s components” and “the ability to identify the system’s processes.”
Both abilities can be classified together as “the system’s analysis skill.”
The second group includes two skills, both of which were presented by about 50%
of the sample: “the ability to identify relationships between separate components” and
“the ability to identify dynamic relationships between the system’s components.”
The third group includes three skills, which were presented by about 30-40% of
the sample population: “the ability to understand the cyclic nature of systems, the ability
to organize components and place them within a network of relationship,” and “the
ability to make generalizations.”
The fourth group was represented by a small number of the interviewed sample
population (10-30%) and includes the perception of the “hidden components of the
system” and the perception of the system within “the dimension of time,” namely the
ability to make a prediction (thinking forward) and the ability to look backwards at the
history of the system (retrospection).
The findings of a hierarchical notion and the interrelationships between dynamic
perception and cyclic perception which were found in the context of the hydro cycle are
in accordance with study of Kali, Orion, and Elon, (2003), which was conducted in the
42
context of the rock cycle, and with Gudovitch (1997) which was conducted in the context
of the carbon cycle. Thus, it suggested that these findings might be generalized to the
study of the earth systems.
In light of the findings and conclusions of the above studies, it is suggested that
the following aspects might contribute in improving students’ abilities to develop
systems-thinking.
1. Introducing the first steps of system thinking at the elementary school level,
namely skills such as the ability to identify the components of a system and
identifying relationships between two components. If the students enter junior
high school with adequate abilities of the lower levels of the system thinking
pyramid, more of them might be able to reach the higher levels of system thinking
during junior high school.
2. Focusing on inquiry-based learning.
3. Using the outdoor learning environment for the construction of a concrete model
of a natural system.
4. Using knowledge integration activities throughout all the stages of the learning
process.
2.2.5 Synthesis
Surprisingly (or not), there are connections among the several cognitive studies
mentioned above that were conducted separately. For example, Dodick and Orion
(1993a) have found an interrelationship between temporal thinking ability and spatial
thinking ability, while Orion, Ben-Chaim and Kali, (1997) as well as Riggs and Tretinjak
(2003) found that geological outdoor experiences might increase students’ spatial
thinking abilities. Ben-zvi-Assaraf and Orion (1994) found that systems-thinking in
relation to the earth is related to temporal thinking (retrospective thinking) and spatial
perception (the ability to perceive the hidden parts of a system). Here again, the outdoor
learning environment was found to be a very effective tool for developing a concrete,
realistic perception of nature that served as a cognitive bridge for the development of the
very abstract, high order thinking components such as temporal, spatial and system
thinking. Moreover, all of the above studies acknowledge the significance of alternative
43
frameworks that most students bring to earth science classes (no matter what age), and
therefore indicate the need to respond to preconceptions and misconceptions with
appropriate instruction, whether in the laboratory, the outdoors, the classroom, or when
working with computers.
Thus, although research in the area of learning earth sciences is quite limited, a
holistic framework has begun to emerge that links the cognitive elements that should be
stressed by teachers who work within an earth systems approach. Holism in this sense
refers to the interconnectedness of spatial reasoning and temporal thinking—not
surprisingly, exactly the slice of reality portrayed by a geologic map. Moreover, since this
research is still limited, it also suggests direction for research agendas for years to come.
2.3 The integration of learning environments within the earth sciences 2.3.1. A holistic approach to learning environments
An important characteristic of earth science education (and other sciences as well)
is the potential to conduct formal teaching in a variety of learning environments: the
classroom, the laboratory, the outdoors (field, museum, or industrial site), and the
computer. Orion (2001) suggests that in order to fulfill this potential and utilize these
environments to best effect, research related to earth science education should address the
following:
1. What are the educational advantages of each of these learning environments in
general and specifically in relation to earth science education?
2. What is the most appropriate context for utilizing each of these learning
environments, specifically in relation to earth science education as well as in
relation to science education in general?
3. What methods are needed to utilize these learning environments properly?
Responding to these questions should be done from a holistic perspective that
connects the several, different learning environments. The holistic perspective is not only
a way of viewing content, it also should inform the choice of a proper learning
environment and the appropriate learning tools.
2.3.2 The integration of the outdoor learning environment within the learning process
44
Review of the proceedings of the three International Geosciences Education
Organization international conferences on Geoscience education (IGEO, 1997; IGEO,
2000; IGEO, 2003) indicates a worldwide agreement on the central place of the outdoor
learning environment within earth science education.
Orion (1993a) suggested a holistic model that connects the outdoor and the indoor
learning environments (Figure 1). The guiding principle of this model is a gradual
progression from the concrete levels of the curriculum towards its more abstract
components. This model can be used for designing a whole curriculum, a course, or a
small set of learning activities (Orion, 1986, 1991). According to this model the outdoor
learning environment should be utilized early on in the concrete part of the learning
process, and should be mainly focused on concrete interaction between the students and
the environment. The outdoors offers tangible experiences relevant to learning abstract
concepts. The outdoor learning environment together with an indoor preparatory unit can
constitute an independent module, serving as a concrete bridge towards more abstract
learning levels. Thus, an outdoor learning activity should be planned as an integral part of
the curriculum rather than as an isolated activity.
Figure 1: The spiral model of integrating an outdoor learning activity within the indoors-learning process.
There is little doubt that initiating learning based upon a student’s own interest, or
at least upon a student’s understanding of why learning a specific topic matters
Field trip
Summary unit
Preparatory unitConcrete
Abstract
45
personally, might serve as a powerful tool for “meaningful learning” (in the sense defined
by Novak, 1977xxx, who has elaborated upon David Ausubel’s term, “meaningful verbal
learning” Ausubel 1966xxx). Meaningful learning is an ambiguous term used frequently
in this chapter. At this stage, we wish to constrain its ambiguity.
Meaningful learning may commence once the student grasps the meaning of a
new concept (i.e., both the sense of its use and its reference to a set of events or objects;
its signification of pattern or regularity in the occurrence of events; Gowin, 19xxx) and
hence can feel the significance of a question. The question may stem from personal
interest or arise from deliberate instruction. Meaningful learning happens when
connections are made through the use of concepts between interesting questions and their
appropriate answers (Gowin, 19xx) and when learners actively organize new meanings
into frameworks of ideas adequate to solving problems and interpreting events in novel as
well as familiar contexts (Novak, 1977xxx; Novak and Gown, 19xxx). Concepts, when
learned meaningfully, make reference to tangible events and derive meaning from clearly
articulated relationships to other concepts. To learn meaningfully means to organize
concepts into useful structures, to feel the significance of ideas, and to connect questions
with answers. The results of meaningful learning are hierarchical conceptual structures
with the power to subsume new knowledge either by “progressively differentiating”
existing categories of thought or by reconciling current ideas, hence integrating new
knowledge into a modified conceptual structure containing entirely new categories
thought, though not in isolation. Meaningful learning proceeds in terms of what is already
known and hence of personal relevance while fashioning “superordinate categories” to
integrate new knowledge in conflict with old (Novak, 1977xxx).
In Orion’s holistic model combining indoor and outdoor environments, the
learning process starts with a “meaning construction” session. In this session, students
converse, with guidance by the teacher, to discover what interests them about a particular
subject. Depending on the subject and the school’s location, this stage takes place in a
relevant outdoor environment or in a versatile indoor space. In the former environment
the function of the teacher is to mediate between the students and tangible phenomena. In
the indoor environment the teacher’s role is to motivate students’ interest by exposing
46
them to phenomena that are related to the subject through the using of pictures, video
films, computer software, Internet sites, and written texts.
It is impossible to go beyond the “meaning construction” stage, without briefly
describing the characteristics of the outdoors as a learning environment and to clearly
identify its advantages and disadvantages.
According to Orion (1993), the main role of an outdoor learning activity in the
learning process is to offer direct experience with concrete phenomena and materials.
Kempa and Orion (1996) suggested another aspect of the outdoor learning environment:
learning the methodology of field research, which plays a very important role in scientific
disciplines such as biology, ecology and geology. Thus, the goal of the outdoor learning
environment includes two main objectives: (a) learning basic concrete concepts through
direct interaction with the environment and (b) learning field investigation methodology.
The unique element of the outdoor experience is not in the concrete experiences
themselves (which could also be provided in the laboratory and classroom), but the type
of experiences: experiences that have emotional intensity. Students could view slides of a
dune and investigate quartz grains in the laboratory, but it is only when climbing the
steep front slope of a sand dune does a student experience of the structure a dune
perceptually and physically. Experience adds affect to the resources for constructing new
concepts. Experiential activities that facilitate the construction of abstract concepts
encourage long-term retention and meaningful learning in part, Orion speculates, because
affect enhances memory.
Historically, the interactionist view (attributed to Dewey, 1896) has stressed the
cognitive contribution of interaction with the physical environment. Dewey’s work, for
example, acknowledges the value of implicit associations acquired through extensive
experience with a phenomenon of interest. These implicit associations—familiarity with
properties and possibilities—are, for Dewey, necessary precursors to explicit
understandings. Explicit understandings exist in bodies of formal knowledge (subjects).
Subjects are repositories of resources for solving different kinds of problems. Children
and adolescents, however, typically have little experience in need of these resources.
Dewey argues that education should extend the experience of the learner into domains
47
where these resources have value. The goal is for the learner to see knowledge as
purposeful.
Dewey feared the sterility of content presented to students as specialized
knowledge bereft of the reasons for its construction:
Those things which are most significant to the scientific man and most valuable in
the logic of actual inquiry and classification drop out. The really thought-
provoking character is obscured, and the organizing function disappears. (Dewey
[1902] 1990, 205xxx)
Dewey valued the logic of action in the context of actual inquiry (e.g., learning
field investigation methodology in the outdoors classroom). He thought insight into this
logic would inform teaching in a positive manner. In addition, much of his work
emphasized the need to respect the nature of the child and the importance of childhood
experience. He was Rousseau’s obvious successor in this regard. His goal was to
reconcile two traditions: subject-centered and child-centered instruction. He noted, quite
rightly, that schooling expected children to learn ideas without understanding the
purposes they served. The outdoor environment appears essential to revealing these
purposes when learning earth sciences as well as to unveiling the logic of inquiry in field
settings.
In addition to Dewey’s interactionist viewpoint, Gibson’s (1966) theory of direct
perception supports the validity of Orion’s model of outdoor-indoor activity. Gibson
argues that perception should be understood as a process of obtaining information from
activity, rather than as a (passive) process of constructing representations of the situation
and operating on those representations (Greeno, Collins and Resnick, 1996).
One point is most crucial to understand: the outdoor learning environment addresses
phenomena and processes that cannot be cultivated indoors. The outdoors is a very
complicated learning environment and includes a large number of stimuli that can easily
distract students from meaningful learning. Thus, the first task of teachers and curriculum
developers is to identify and classify phenomena, processes, skills, and concepts which
can only be learned in a concrete fashion outdoors, and those that can be learned in a
concrete fashion indoors. In addition, it is important to identify those abstract concepts to
48
which the outdoors contributes little to student understanding. In such cases, more
sophisticated indoor tools (such as pictures, films, slides and computer software) must be
substituted.
Consider a location where students find that an outcrop reveals an anticline and
begin to infer geological processes that might have produced this structure. Are they
ready to approach this task? Or is the challenge too novel? Many of the concepts useful to
drawing conclusions about the anticlinal structure sedimentation, superposition, and
initial horizontality can be better explained through lab observations and simulations.
Following the understanding of these concepts students who arrive to this specific
outcrop can conclude that the layers are not located in their original setting. Then,
through a field observation they might decipher the anticline structure. From this point, a
better understanding of the three dimensional nature of a folded structure as well as the
folding mechanism can be effectively achieved through the use of computer software and
hand held models (Kali and Orion, 1997).
Following the “meaning construction” stage, conducted either outdoors or
indoors, the first phase of a specific learning spiral starts in the indoor learning
environment. The length of time of this phase is varied; it is entirely dependent on the
specific learning sequence. The main aim of this phase is to prepare the students for their
outdoor learning activities. This preparation deals with reducing what is termed by Orion
and Hofstein (1994) as the “novelty space” of an outdoor setting (Fig. 2). The novelty
space consists of three factors: cognitive, geographical and psychological. The cognitive
novelty depends on the concepts and skills that students are asked to deal with throughout
the outdoor learning experience. The geographical novelty reflects the acquaintance of
the students with the outdoor physical area. The psychological novelty is the gap between
the students’ expectations and the reality that they face during the outdoor learning event.
The novelty space concept has a very clear implication for planning and
conducting outdoor learning experiences. It defines the scope of preparation required for
an educational field trip. Preparation that considers the three novelty factors reduces the
novelty space to a minimum, thus facilitating meaningful learning during the field trip.
Working with the materials that the students will meet in the field and conducting
49
simulations of geological processes through laboratory experiments directly reduces
cognitive novelty. To reduce the geographic and psychological novelty of the outdoor
learning experience teachers may turn first to slides, films, maps, and secondly to detailed
information about the event. Students should know the purpose of outdoor learning, the
learning method, the number of learning stations, the length of time, the expected weather
conditions, the expected difficulties along the route, etc. Safety briefing is a must as well.
Figure 2: The three dimensions, which identify the novelty space of an outdoor learning activity
The next phase in this cycle is the outdoor learning activity. The curriculum
materials for the outdoor learning experience should lead students to interact directly with
the phenomenon and only secondarily, if at all, with the teacher.. The teacher’s role is to
act as a mediator between the students and the concrete phenomena. Some of the
students’ questions can be answered on the spot, but only those, which might be
answered according to the evidence uncovered in the specific outdoor site. Otherwise
time and resources, including the students’ attention, is wasted on activities that might be
done elsewhere. Lectures, discussions and long summaries should be postponed until the
next phase, which is better conducted in an indoor environment.
Marques, Paria and Kempa (2003) explored Orion’s model within the Portuguese
earth sciences curriculum. Their study supported the importance of preparation for the
outdoor learning experience. They also found a positive influence of this learning
environment on students’ learning. However, their study also highlighted the difficulties
50
teachers faced in adapting to the novel, outdoor learning environment. (The last section of
this chapter returns to this issue in detail.)
Geo3D software (Kali & Orion, 1996) nicely illustrates an example of the
indoor—outdoor cycle. The design of this software fosters the development of spatial
visualization skill. Most geological outcrops hide elements of the three dimensional
configuration of geological structure. Even having observed a structure such as an
anticline in the field, most students have difficulty perceiving its three dimensional form.
Thus, the outdoors is not as suitable a learning environment as is a computer simulation
for the development of spatial visualization (Kali and Orion, 1996). At the same time,
many of the software’s tasks are based on the same concrete phenomena that students
have observed and identified during their geological field trips.
Gudovich and Orion (2003) researched how to integrate the computer and the
laboratory learning environments within the framework of a distance learning course. The
study included the development of a website with detailed visual and textual instructions
for conducting hands-on lab activities and an identical kit of all the equipment and
materials needed for conducting a specific experiment. The web-site also included
questions that students have to answer following their activity and send by email to the
teacher. This model was tested in the following two settings:
1. In the school's lab where students sat in small groups (2-3) in front of a computer
with the activity kit on the table and conducted the lab activity independently
following the visual and the textual instructions of the distant learning website.
The teacher remained in the lab in order to address any needs of the students.
2. In an out of school setting where a student sat alone without a teacher and
conducted the lab activity by himself/herself.
Following their initial study of distance learning, Gudovich and Orion
administered a battery of qualitative and quantitative instruments in order to find out
more about the role of the teacher during lab activities. Findings indicated that it is
possible to decrease the need for teachers during lab procedures and to decrease the
chance of failure. Analyzing students’ difficulties during the activities indicates that those
difficulties are not unique to distant learning setting.
51
2.3.3 Integrating the lab learning environment within the learning sequence
Although there are many laboratory-based earth science units for various age
levels all over the world, little has been published concerning the role of the laboratory
learning environment within the earth science education.
A review of many such lab-based units indicates that the main role of the
laboratory is to demonstrate or simulate the earth's processes. However, little has been
published concerning the influence of simulations on the development of misconceptions
among school students. Another unexploited area of the earth science laboratory
environment is its great potential for contributing to the development of inquiry scientific
skills and thinking.
Inquiry in the geosciences has a unique characteristic: its “experiments” in the
grandest sense have already been conducted by nature. They are unfundable and
unreplicable. No one can send glacial ice across a continent or carve a Grand Canyon.
Consequently, many geological inquiries are of a retrospective type—trying to unravel
what happened in the past, using “fingerprints” left on the earth. Frodeman, (1995)
describes geology as an interpretive and historical science, which “embodies distinctive
methodology within the sciences.” He further argues that “the geologist picks up on the
clues of past events and processes in a way analogous to how the physician interprets the
signs of illness or the detective builds a circumstantial case against a defendant” (p. 963).
Edelson, Gordin and Pea (1999) describe the geosciences as being “observational
sciences” that emphasize comparisons and contrasts among features of the earth in time
and place. Inference based upon comparison and contrast, especially when considered
across different scales in time and place, differs from inference based upon the results of
experimentation (Ault, 1998). Both approaches are empirical, quantitative, and subject to
scrutiny using rules of logic. They offer different milieus for illustrating the meaning of
some of the most basic constructs of scientific thinking: for example, observations,
conclusions, and hypotheses.
A traditional method for categorizing inquiry curricula is to analyze the degree of
structure or openness of the activities they include (Schwab, 1962; Herron, 1971; German
et al, 1996). Using such methods, inquiry-based curricula can be placed anywhere on a
52
continuum extending from completely structured curricula on one side to completely
open curricula on the other.
Those who advocate inquiry in the science curricula for all accept that the
educational system ought to enable students bring students to a stage where they will be
able to design, conduct, and analyze their own investigations, then communicate their
findings. However, the appropriate stages for engaging students in open inquiry is not
clear, nor are the means for bringing students to a stage in which they will be able
autonomously to design and conduct their own experiments. While some researchers
suggest designing a variety of activities to suit a diversity of cognitive developmental
stages in a classroom (e.g. Germann, 1989), others suggest preparing students for open
inquiry by engaging them with well structured investigations (e.g. Edelson et al., 1999).
One of the rarely asked questions regarding inquiry learning concerns the
cognitive prerequisites necessary for using open inquiry methods. Elshout and Veenman,
(1992) claim that “In unguided-discovery learning, one expects high metacognitive skill
and intellectual ability to be essential requisites to keep the learning process going”
(p.135). It is therefore reasonable to claim that students should understand the meaning of
some of the most basic concepts used in scientific methodologies before they can begin
an independent inquiry process. Such understanding provides the means for making
hypotheses, designing experiments, collecting and analyzing data, and reporting their
findings. Unfortunately, evidence exists indicating that students in junior and senior high
schools have severe difficulties in understanding the essence of the scientific method.
They have, in effect, failed to learn scientific method as a content with its own concepts
and principles. Zohar (1998) reported that junior high school students had difficulties in
understanding the difference between their experimental results and their conclusions.
Solomon, Duveen & Hall (1994) reported that high school students had difficulties in
distinguishing between descriptions and causal explanations. Tamir (1989) claims that
“students do not understand the concepts that underlie the processes of scientific
investigations. These concepts (e.g., hypothesis, control) are not easy to understand…”
(p. 61).
53
Learning earth sciences has a role to play in remedying this situation. Kali and
Orion (2004) suggest that the earth sciences education has the potential to provide
students, at beginning stages of their science education, with basic inquiry skills that are
required for further open-ended inquiry endeavors. They developed a 34-hour lab-based
curriculum unit for junior high school students, focusing on geological processes that
transform the materials within the crust of the earth—“The Rock Cycle”—and organized
this curriculum into nine structured inquiry modules. To foster students' awareness of the
different inquiry routes embedded in the inquiry modules, each of the modules was
followed by a MIR (Metacognitive Inquiry Reconstruction) assignment. In these
activities linguistic terms were used as organizing schemes. Students examined their
investigation with “scientific inquiry spectacles,” and categorized different stages of the
inquiry with terms such as observations, hypotheses, and conclusions.
MIR presents assignments in three alternative variations, from which the students
choose. Each variation is a different combination of solutions to students’ needs and
difficulties. The first variation starts with a short verbal summary of the inquiry path,
with missing words for the student to complete. It continues using the linguistic schemes
(terms like “observation”, “hypothesis” and “conclusion”), for organizing the inquiry
process. This variation was designed for students who feel comfortable with verbal and
structured environments, and who have difficulties in reconstructing the inquiry path
without assistance.
The second variation includes a list of verbal expressions that constitute the entire
inquiry path in the related module. Students are asked to name the appropriate inquiry
construct for each expression. This variation is very similar, in the degree of structure, to
the first variation. It was designed to support students who are uncomfortable with filling
in missing words in a text, as required in the first variation.
The second MIR variation enables students to focus on the inquiry constructs,
without representing their understanding of the inquiry path. In the third variation,
students list the stages of the inquiry path in the module, using the inquiry constructs, and
represent this path in any way they choose, using verbal or graphic means.
54
Kali and Orion (2004) tested the influence of learning an inquiry-based “Rock
Cycle” curriculum and its accompanying MIR activities on student ability to distinguish
between observations, hypotheses, and conclusions on a sample of 582 students in 7th and
8th grade from 21 classes sharing 14 teachers at 8 junior high schools in Israel. The
schools represented urban, suburban, and rural societies. The study used a large battery of
qualitative and quantitative research tools in a pre-test/post-test structure.
The pre-test outcomes indicated that the 7th and 8th grade students included in this
study had considerable difficulties in understanding concepts underlying the scientific
method. The large and significant pre-post differences found in many of the classes
indicated the high potential for an inquiry-based “Rock Cycle” program to develop and
distinguish among three basic elements of scientific thinking (observations, hypotheses,
conclusions).
The large improvement in students’ scientific thinking skills, found in many of the
classes, might have been a result of students’ engagement with the unique inquiry
methods of geoscience. Students focused their tangible observations on materials of the
earth. They drew conclusions from “experiments” that were conducted by nature in the
past and did not design their own investigations.
However, Kali and Orion also found no improvement among classes taught by
teachers who did not properly adopt the inquiry-based teaching strategy. These teachers
taught the “Rock Cycle” unit in the traditional manner. Thus, despite the great importance
of appropriate curriculum materials, they are not sufficient in themselves for inducing
cognitive development amongst students. Sometimes teachers are the limiting factor in
students’ ability to exploit the potential of “The Rock Cycle” in developing scientific
thinking skills.
2.3.4 The computer learning environment.
The role of the computer learning environment for learning earth sciences is
growing as the availability of computers as learning tools increases in many countries.
The computer is mainly used within the earth science education for the following learning
purposes:
55
1. Demonstration through animations and simulations of earth processes and
phenomena that cannot be demonstrated in the lab or in the field (Kali and Orion,
1996; Reynolds et al., 2002; Kali, 2003).
2. Data collection and knowledge integration (Kali, Orion and Elon, 2003).
3. Knowledge presentation through multimedia software (Chang, 2004; Orion,
Dubowski and Dodick, 2000).
4. Web-based learning that provides a variety of learning resources such as on-line
information about phenomena and processes around the planet earth and other
planets as well; on-line data bases; communication with peers and experts; and the
possibility of distant learning (Slattery, Mayer and Klemm, 2003; Gudovich and
Orion 2004).
Although there has been some research concerning the computer learning
environment in the context of the earth sciences (as mentioned above), it is still in its
embryonic stage and there is a great need to explore the unique contribution of this
environment to learning earth sciences.
2.4. Research and the development of curriculum materials The main goal of earth science education is to improve the way students learn
about and understand our planet. To achieve this goal, the end product of science
education research should be:
1. Development of learning materials and learning strategies for a wide range of
students and teachers.
2. Development of appropriate teaching materials and strategies, as well as preparing
teachers to fully implement such strategies.
Following the holistic earth systems approach for teaching earth science and the
holistic approach of integrating the earth sciences’ learning environments together with
emphasis on a concrete-abstract continuum, it is only natural to present a holistic model
for the curriculum materials development for learning earth sciences. In this section, we
report in detail about a curriculum for teaching the water cycle from earth systems as well
as environmental issues perspectives. The curriculum, “The Blue Planet,” emerged from
a “design research” effort.
56
Edelson, Gordin and Pea (2004) advocate for “design research” as a powerful
model for the development of effective learning tools. They used this model to develop
inquiry-based software for the study of climatology through visualization. In design
research, the study of learning takes place in the context of designing and revising
curriculum materials based upon careful study of student response to these materials.
Orion’s (2002) helical model of research, curriculum development, and
implementation is similar. In this model, each curriculum development effort starts with a
pre-development study to identify misconceptions, preconceptions and learning
difficulties associated with the specific subject. The findings from this stage serve as a
basis for the first curriculum development phase. An implementation phase follows
curriculum development. The implementation phase involves in-service training for a
small number of teachers who will teach the curriculum to their classes.
An evaluation study follows the implementation stage. The results of the
evaluation inform the second iteration of curriculum development. In turn, this phase is
followed by a wider implementation cycle. Evaluation happens again, this time on the
wider scale, leading to a third curriculum development stage, and so on. This model helps
to adapt curriculum materials for specific ages and varieties of students found in different
classrooms. It responds to the difficulties both students and teachers are having with the
curriculum. This model of research, curriculum development, implementation, and
evaluation should continue so long as the curriculum is in place.
2.4.1 Pre-development of “The Blue Planet” curriculum
Based upon Orion’s helical model, research preceded and followed the
development for 8th grade students of an earth systems unit on the hydrosphere, “The
Blue Planet.” In order to examine students’ prior knowledge and understanding in
relation to the water cycle, a “zoom-in” analysis was conducted. Quantitative research
tools were used with a large sample in order to obtain a general picture of students’
knowledge and perceptions. Later, qualitative research tools were used with a smaller,
randomly selected sample in order to gain insight into “misconceptions” or “alternative
concepts” and to validate the quantitative tools.
The pre-development study included the following two objectives:
57
1. Identify prior knowledge of the water cycle held by students entering junior high
school.
2. Explore their perceptions of the cyclic and the systemic nature of the water cycle.
Review of the literature concerning the predevelopment phase revealed that in
spite of the crucial importance of water from the environmental perspective, most of the
studies that have been conducted in this area have concentrated on students’ perceptions
of the physical aspects of the water cycle, namely, changes in the water state (Bar, 1989;
Bar & Travis, 1991). An ERIC search in 2002 revealed only a few published studies that
focused on children’s perceptions of the water cycle in the environmental context of the
earth. Agelidou, Balafoutas, and Gialamas (2001) reported that students do not perceive
how human activities are related to water problems and their consequences. Specifically,
they do not recognize the principal factors responsible for these problems.
Fetherstonhaugh and Bezzi (1992) reported that after 11 years of schooling, students
could only present simplistic and naïve conceptions of the water cycle. Moreover, the
students showed a poor and inadequate scientific understanding of groundwater as a part
of the water cycle.
Brody (1994) conducted a meta-analysis study of about 30 articles published
between 1983 and 1992 that dealt with difficulties of middle and high-school students in
understanding different subjects connected with water. Only a few of those articles dealt
with the environmental aspects of water, whereas at least 80% of them focused on the
following three areas of difficulty:
1. Understanding the chemical and physical processes such as condensation,
evaporation, and the molecular structure of water.
2. Understanding the significance of water for processes that take place in living
organisms.
3. Understanding interdisciplinary subjects such as water resources, and the
social and scientific linkages of these topics.
Taiwo, Ray, Motswiri, and Masene (1999) confirmed that students’ perceptions of
the water cycle were influenced by their cultural beliefs and to a large extent by their
pseudoscientific knowledge about cloud formation and rainfall. Barker (1998) reported
58
that in spite of the fact that about 90% of the water absorbed by the roots is lost by
evaporation, mainly through the leaves, 50% of the students in his study claimed that
plants retain all the water that they absorb.
Since the literature provided only a limited basis for students’ alternative
frameworks concerning the water cycle, a pre-development study was designed and
implemented among a population of about 800 junior high school students. Five types of
research tools were used in the study: Likert type questionnaires, open questions,
drawings, word associations and interviews. The following is a brief description of the
different tools.
Groundwater Dynamic Nature Questionnaire (GDN): This Likert-type
questionnaire identifies students’ prior knowledge and understanding of the dynamic
nature of the groundwater system and its environmental relationship with humans.
Cyclic Thinking Questionnaire (CT): This questionnaire contains two parts. The
first part includes a Likert-type questionnaire in which students mark their level of
agreement with seven statements concerning the cyclic nature of the hydrosphere and the
conservation of matter within earth systems. The second part includes two open
questions: In the first question students define the concept of the cyclic process in nature;
in the second question they give an example according to their definition.
Global Magnitude Questionnaire (GM): This questionnaire contains two parts.
The first part includes a Likert-type questionnaire in which students indicate their level of
agreement with five statements about the scale of each stage of the water cycle. In the
second part, students grade on a scale of 1 to 10 the relative global quantity of water that
exists within each of the following components of the water cycle: oceans, glaciers,
rocks, soil, groundwater, lakes, precipitation, tap water, sewage water, and humans. In
this scale, 1 was the major reservoir of water on earth and 10 was the smallest reservoir.
Assessing Students’ Knowledge (ASK): In this Likert-type questionnaire, students
indicate their level of agreement with three statements concerning the physical and
chemical processes within the water cycle.
Drawing Analyses (DA): There is evidence that young children can communicate
scientific ideas through their drawings by drawing what they know about a particular
59
object rather than what they see. In this task, the students draw the water cycle, using in
their drawings as many items as possible from a list of stages and processes of the water
cycle provided to them. The students receive assurances that no one expected a highly
artistic drawing.
In order to increase the reliability and consistency of the analysis of the drawings,
the authors each individually coded the drawings of 20 students. After comparing and
discussing the two separate analyses, a standardized coding system was developed.
Additionally, follow-up interviews were conducted with 50 students, in which students
were asked to elaborate on their drawings. The drawings were analyzed according to the
following criteria:
1. Presence of earth systems. 2. Depiction of processes. 3. Examples of human consumption or pollution. 4. Cyclic conception of the water cycle as a series of links among water cycle
components. Word Association (WA): Word Association directly probes for associations
among a set of concepts. Students write down all the water cycle concepts familiar to
them, then later classify them in relation to a unifying concept such as processes in the
water cycle, location, geosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and atmosphere, human use of
water, and environmental and chemical aspects.
Interviews: Interviews with 40 students validate the analysis of their
questionnaires and provide insights into students’ perceptions of the water cycle. During
the interviews, students read their answers and indicate whether they still agree with their
drawings or responses to the questionnaire. They then elaborate on their answers.
Transcription and qualitative analysis of the questionnaires from the
predevelopment study indicated that most of the students demonstrated an incomplete
picture of the water cycle and held many misconceptions about it. Children that drew the
water cycle usually represented the upper part of the water cycle (evaporation,
condensation, and rainfall) and ignored the ground water system. More than 50% of the
students could not identify components of the ground water system even when they were
familiar with the associated terminology. In their mind, underground water was a static,
60
sub-surface lake. Furthermore, they imagined that water chemistry was constant
throughout the entire water cycle (no purification by evaporation). Presumably,
environmental insight regarding water pollution and water conservation requires
connecting the stages of the water cycle to the processes that modify water quality and
abundance. The water cycle alterative frameworks held by more than 50% of the students
do not bode well for learning environmental insights.
Cyclic thinking correlated significantly with drawing the water cycle to include
its groundwater component. A student who drew the underground water system held the
following concept about the cyclic nature of the water cycle: “I absolutely disagree.
There is no starting point and no end point in the water cycle. It is a continuous process.”
Analysis of the pre-development study findings might suggest that the ability of
students to perceive the hydrosphere as a coherent system depends on both scientific
knowledge and cognitive abilities.
The knowledge component has two elements:
1. Factual-based knowledge that includes acquaintance with the components of the
water cycle and awareness of its processes.
2. Process-based knowledge, namely a deep understanding of the various processes
that transform matter within the water cycle.
The cognitive component also has two elements:
1. Cyclic thinking, namely the understanding that the water cycle is a system which
has no starting or end points; just the same matter, but in different forms,
transformed over and over again within the system.
2. Systemic thinking, which is the ability to perceive the water cycle in the context
of its interrelationship with the other Earth systems.
2.4.2 Development and evaluation of the “The Blue Planet” curriculum
The findings of the pre-development study served as a basis for the development
of an interdisciplinary program named “The Blue Planet.” This program focused on the
water cycle as an example of the relationships seen amongst the various earth systems.
The evaluation effort examined the effect of “The Blue Planet” program on the earth
science learning of 700 junior high school students. The evaluation focused on:
61
1. Exploring students’ conceptions and attitudes about people’s relationships with
the earth system.
2. Identifying the alternative frameworks students possess with regard to the
components of the water cycle.
3. Identifying changes in knowledge and cognitive skill among students.
Two additional research tools were used in this stage:
Concept maps: The students were asked to create concept maps at the beginning
and end of the learning process. Comparison of the number and type of items between the
concept maps served as a measure of changes in students’ knowledge and understanding
of processes. The number of connections within the concept map served as an indication
of students’ understanding of the relationship between the components of the water cycle.
Observations: In order to track the learning event itself regular observations were
conducted in the classes. The observer used a structured observation report that directed
her to document the type of activities of both students and the teacher.
The following are the main findings of the evaluation study:
1. The observations indicated that for the most part, the teachers concentrated
primarily on scientific principles and only very little on the cognitive aspects of
the connections between the water cycle and the other earth systems, or between
the water cycle and environmental case studies. In addition, most teachers tended
to ignore the constructivist activities developed in light of the findings of the pre-
development study. These were activities intended to correct students’
misconceptions and to develop a broader, more coherent conception of the water
cycle within an earth systems context.
2. A significant improvement was found in student’s level of knowledge, namely
acquaintance with the components of the water cycle.
3. A significant improvement was found in relation to students’ understanding of the
evaporation process. However, in relation to all the other processes only a minor
improvement was found.
4. The analysis of the cyclic and systemic thinking questionnaires showed some
improvements in students’ understanding of the different types of
62
interrelationship among the earth systems. However, even after completing The
Blue Planet program, poor understanding of the systemic nature of the water
cycle dominated student thinking. Most of the students showed a fragmented
conception of the water cycle and made no connections between the atmospheric
stages of the water cycle and the geospheric (underground) stages of the water
cycle.
These findings indicate that improvement in knowledge is not enough for the
development of environmental insight. For this purpose students should develop their
cognitive abilities of cyclic and systemic thinking, through learning activities that were
directly developed for this purpose. Although such activities were provided, teachers
tended to ignore them. They need to understand that simply gaining knowledge about the
components of the water cycle does not contribute to progress in the development of
environmental insight.
3. The teaching aspect: the difference between professional developmentand professional change
We cannot complete the holistic view of the ability to engage students in
meaningful learning of the earth sciences without paying close attention to teaching. As
determined in the evaluation of “The Blue Planet” program, teachers may limit the
introduction of new content and new learning strategies within schools. Teaching
strategies that are needed in order to achieve meaningful learning about earth systems and
environmental insights are quite different from the traditional science teaching (Table 1).
Table 1: A comparison between traditional science teaching and proper earth systems teaching. Traditional science teaching Proper earth systems teaching The main purpose is to prepare the future scientists of a society
The main purpose is to prepare the future citizens of a society
Disciplinary-centered teaching Multidisciplinary teaching
Teacher-centered teaching Child-centered teaching
Content-based teaching Integration of skills within contents
The teacher as the source of knowledge/information
The teacher as a facilitator of learning and mediator of knowledge
“Chalk and talk” based teaching Inquiry based teaching
School-based learning Multiple learning environments: Classroom, lab, outdoors and computer.
Curriculum that is derived from the scientific world
Curriculum that is derived from the real world of student experience
63
Traditional assessment Alternative assessment In order for teachers to move from the left column of Table 1 to the right one—
from traditional to earth systems teaching—they must change their goals for student
learning, the contents of their curricula, and their approaches to instruction. Clearly, this
shift constitutes a major change in philosophy, from reductionism and disciplinary-driven
schooling towards holism and attention to educating students for lives of social
responsibility within democratic societies. The shift presented in table 1 is valid for any
genuine “Science for All” teaching, however teaching about earth systems demands
something more: that teachers actually teach earth science subjects, an area in which
many science teachers in many countries have little or no scientific background (King,
2003; Orion 2003b). Furthermore, students learn these subjects best—and often can only
learn field methodologies of investigation—when teachers make use of the outdoor
learning environment. Most traditional science teaching ignores this environment.
The use of the term “professional development” is misleading and contributes to
the difficulties of making a genuine change in teaching style and focus. Professional
development is far too restrictive a concept. The task to be accomplished exceeds what
we might expect of professional development. It requires participation and commitment
on many levels, from community and school to business and academia.
Orion (2003b) has reported on the outcome of a long-term (10 years) study within
the “storm’s eye” of the new Israeli “Science for All” curricula for junior high and high
school. This intensive work included participating in the committees that designed the
new “Science for All” curricula for junior high and high school; taking a central role in a
team that has developed learning materials for these two programs; and leading and
taking a practical role in hundreds of in-service training hours in each of the 10 years
both in in-service training centers and in the teachers’ schools and classes.
Study of this decadal process has produced four Ph.D. dissertations (Kali & Orion
2003; Dodick & Orion 2003b; Ben-zvi-Assraf & Orion 2004; Kapulnick, Orion & Gniel
2004) and one Master’s thesis (Midyan, 2003). This action research has included
qualitative and quantitative data collected with questionnaires, interviews and classroom
observations. All together, these different studies examined the practice of science
64
teaching and learning for about 1000 science teachers and their students. Most of the
studies were conducted at the junior high school level, but also included teachers and
students from the elementary and the high school levels. In addition to observing teachers
and evaluating student learning, these studies addressed systemic reform from the points
of view of principals, superintendents, curriculum developers, academic scientists, the
ministry of education, as well as in-service training and pre-service education programs
for teachers.
Each of the different and separate studies indicated that despite their participation
in long term in-service training programs, the vast majority of the teachers did not
undergo genuine professional development. Professional inertia was the rule. The studies
indicated a clear gap between the teachers’ positive declaration about their development
as were expressed through questionnaires and interviews and their actual practice in
classrooms. This gap was especially clear in regards to their implementations of new
teaching methods and new subject matter.
In addition to teachers’ reluctance to implement new teaching methods and
incorporate new scientific topics, the interviews with the teachers revealed four additional
factors which prevented them from genuinely implementing a reform:
1. A general apprehension about change.
2. The feeling that the training institutes outside of school regional centers did not
provide them with practical tools needed to overcome their apprehension about
unknown areas.
3. The lack of support from the school management, which does not provide them
the needed resources for adapting new teaching strategies such as laboratory
equipment, computers, a reasonable number of students for working in a
laboratory, resources for using the outdoor learning environment, and a
reasonable amount of teaching hours.
4. A double-standard from the Ministry of Education in general and more
specifically from their science education inspectors. The teachers claimed that
they were confused, since on one hand the Ministry of Education initiated the
reform and their inspectors encouraged them to participate in the regional centers’
65
INST (xxx what does INST stand for?) program, but at the same time the Ministry
of Education did not provide them with needed resources. Furthermore, the
Ministry called upon the inspectors to implement a national testing regime—in
many respects institutionalizing the antithesis of the new “Science for All”
approach.
The above findings suggest that the movement of teachers towards an earth
systems approach with the spirit of the “Science for All” paradigm consists of more than
professional development. For these teachers it is a paradigm shift and many (actually
most) cannot or do not really want to undergo such a huge change.
In light of these considerations, Orion (2003b) suggested that an effective model
for professional change should include the following components:
1. In the first stage the teachers have to experience the new methods and contents as
learners. Positive experiences as learners will help them to be both convinced of
the effectiveness of the new paradigm and later to deal with their students’
learning difficulties from the perspective of the difficulties that they experienced
as learners.
2. The school’s management should be an integral part of the INST and take on the
commitment of facilitating the implementation of the new reform.
3. The first teaching experiences with the new methods and contents should be done
with close support from the INST experts.
4. The INST leaders should be equipped with psychological knowledge and skills to
deal with reservations and oppositions which result from a fear of change.
The world is complicated and diverse and the Israeli example is that of just one
nation. Yet the conflict between reform efforts and testing priorities is worrisome and
certainly experienced elsewhere. Most importantly, the Israeli case illustrates the need for
research in science education to address many contexts, from integrating curriculum to
changing teaching paradigms.
4. Summary
66
The first decade of the 21st century finds earth science education in a more central
place in science curricula than a decade before. The progress of earth science in schools
all over the world is closely related to its central role in the development of
environmental insight among future citizens. However, the ability of earth science to
establish itself as a sustainable course of study in schools is highly dependent on the
ability of science teachers to overcome many barriers, including their own lack of
background and the persistent low stature of the field. This low stature is a function of the
failure to understand “what’s so special about learning earth sciences.”
Learning earth sciences offers the distinct potential of seeing through the
landscape and through time. Its many subjects unite to conceive of the world as dynamic,
interacting systems, themselves composed of stabilizing cycles. These systems operate on
many scales in time and place, some so vast as to challenge the limits of imagination. The
earth sciences represent phenomena of interest in visual forms: contour maps, block
diagrams, and computer models of virtual worlds, both of the interior earth and its
changing climate. These representations place distinctive demands on the cognitive
capacities of learners. Making sense of earth’s processes and patterns, structures and
changes, systems and cycles, depends upon visualization and spatial reasoning as well as
recognizing bias in the human-scale perception of events.
Understanding how the earth works requires retrospection and retrodiction—
making inferences about the past. By interpreting the present as the outcome of natural
experiments on vast scales and sleuthing out its causal history, earth sciences set the stage
for making extrapolations about possible futures. These extrapolations inform our actions
with information about risks, from seismic to atmospheric. On local, regional, and global
scales human interact with earth’s natural systems, becoming agents of geologic,
climatic, and evolutionary change. This power carries heavy responsibility; learning earth
sciences offers lessons students need in order to develop their capacity to exercise this
responsibility.
This chapter presents a holistic view of earth sciences education and a holistic
model to achieve a meaningful learning of the earth sciences. This model combines an
educational vision (development of environmental insight through adopting the earth
67
systems approach) together with a research agenda, curriculum development for all the
learning environments, preparing teachers for the implementation of the new curriculum
materials, and the teaching strategies and tactics that are appropriate for each learning
environment (classroom, laboratory, outdoor and computer). The vision encompasses
how learning earth sciences may contribute to gaining insight into the nature of scientific
investigation and scientific reasoning in several contexts. Nevertheless, the conclusion
remains that depending upon the earth science disciplines in isolation, either from each
other or from the humanities and social sciences, to set the agenda for learning earth
sciences will fail to serve the public good. We need to respect students, their families, and
their communities as sources of ideas, issues, and problems to solve through application
of knowledge about earth systems.
Research has a central role in this holistic plan. It should provide an
understanding of students’ difficulties with the learning process and identify the
appropriate learning and teaching strategies for overcoming cognitive barriers to spatial
and temporal thinking, to retrospection, to understanding phenomena across scales, to
integrating several subjects, and to developing the cognitive capacity for systems
thinking. In addition, the research agenda should provide the basis for the development of
curriculum materials, the sequencing of learning, and productive paths for teachers to
follow in overcoming internally and externally imposed barriers to reform. We know
much too little from a research perspective about thoroughly contextualized, fully
integrated, earth systems thinking linked to environmental studies and centered on
students personal and social lives. If we are to have curricula that do these things, then we
must understand better what obstacles are and how to overcome them.
The good news that emerges from this chapter is that there are sound studies that
have already been done that can show the way for progress, but the better news is that
these studies are still few and there is room for many young researchers to join the
bandwagon and make their mark in the earth science education field and in the future of
humankind on earth.
68
References
Agelidou, E., Balafoutas, G., & Gialamas.,V. (2001) Interpreting how third grade junior high school students represent water. International Journal of Education and Information, 20, 19-36. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (1990). Science for All Americans. New York: Oxford University Press. American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (1993). Benchmarks for science literacy. New York: Oxford University Press. Ault, C.R., Jr. (1981). Children’s concepts about time no barrier to understanding thegeologic past. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Cornell University, Ithaca. Ault, C.R. Jr. (1982). Time in geological explanations as perceived by elementary schoolstudents. Journal of Geological Education, 30, 304-309.
Ault, C.R., Jr. (1984). The everyday perspective and exceedingly unobvious meaning.Journal of Geological Education, 32, 89-91 Ault, C.R., Jr. (1998). Criteria of excellence for geological inquiry: The necessity of ambiguity. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 35, 189-212. Bar, V. (1989). Children's views about the water cycle. Science Education, 73, 481-500.
Bar, V and Travis, A. S. (1991) Children's views concerning phase changes. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 28, 363-382. Ben-zvi-Assaraf, O. and Orion, N. (2004). The development of system thinking skills in the context of earth systems education. The Journal of Research in Science Teaching. Accepted for publication. Bezzi, A. 1995. Personal construct psychology and the teaching of petrology atundergraduate level. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 33, 179-204. Bezzi, A., and Happs, J. C. (1994). Belief systems as barriers to learning in geological education. Journal of Geological Education, 42, 134-140. Bloom, B.S. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain, N.Y.: David McKay. P. 196. Brody, M.J. (1994). Student science knowledge related to ecological crises. International Journal of science teaching, 16, 421-435. Bybee, R.W. (1993). Reforming science Education - Social perspectives & personal reflections. Teachers College Press, Columbia University. P. 198
69
Bybee, R.W and Deboer, G.E. (1994). Research on goals for the science curriculum. In Gabel, D. (Ed.), Handbook of research in science teaching and learning. 357-388. MacMillian, New York. Carpenter, J.R. (1996). Models for effective instruction of Earth science teachers in the USA. In D. A. Stow & G.J. McCall (Eds.), Geosciences education and training in schools and universities, for industry and public awareness. AGID special publication series No 19. Rotterdam: Balkema.
70
Chadwick, P. (1978). Some aspects of the development of geological thinking.Journal of Geological Teaching, 3, 142-148. Chang, C.Y. (2004). Could a laptop plus the liquid crystal display projector amount to
improved multimedia geoscience instruction? Journal of computer Assisted Learning. 20, 4-10.
De Jong, T. and van Joolingen, W.R. (1998). Scientific discovery learning with computer simulations of conceptual domains. Review of Educational Research, 68, 179-201. DeLaughter, J., Stein, S., Stein, C. and Bain, K. (1998). Preconceptions about earth science among students in an introductory course. Eos, 79, 429. Department of Education and Science/Welsh Office. (1989). Science in the National Curriculum. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. Dewey, J., (1896). The reflex arc concept in psychology. Psychological Review, III, 357-370. Dickerson, D.L., (2003). Naïve conceptions about groundwater among pre-service science teachers and secondary students. Paper presented in March 2003 in Holly Springs, NC at the Annual Conference of the North Carolina Association for Research in Education Dodick, J. T. and Orion, N. (2003a). Cognitive factors affecting student understanding of geological time. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 40 (4), 415-442. Dodick, J. T., and Orion, N. (2003b). Measuring student understanding of “deep time”. Science Education, 87(5), 708-731. Dodick, J. T., and Orion, N. (2003c). Geology as an Historical Science: Its Perception within Science and the Education System. Science and Education, 12 (2), 197-211. Dori, Y. J., & Barak, M. (2001). Virtual and Physical Molecular Modeling: Fostering
Model Perception and Spatial Understanding. Educational Technology & Society, 4(1), 61-74.
Dove, J.E. (1999). Exploring a hydrological concept through children’s drawings. International Journal of Science Education. 21, (5) 485-497
Dove, J.E. (1997). Student ideas about weathering and erosion. International Journal of Science Education, 19:8, 971-980. Driver, R.,Guesne, E. and Tiberghien, A. (1985). Children's ideas in science. Open University Press, Milton Keynes. P. 208 Edelson, D.C., Gordin, D.N., & Pea R.D. (1999). Addressing the challengeinquirybased learning through technology and curriculum design. The Journal ofLearning Sciences, 8, 391-449.
71
Emery, R. E. (1992). Parenting in context: Systemic thinking about parental conflict aninfluence on children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 60, 909-9
Everitt, C.L., Good, S.C. and Pankiewicz, P.R. (1996). Conceptualizing the
inconceivable by depicting the magnitude of geological time with a yearlyplanning calendar. Journal of Geoscience Education, 44, 290-293.
Faughnan, J. G. & Elson, R (1998). Information technology and the clinical curriculum
Some predictions and their implications for the class of 2003. Academic Medici73, 766-769.
Fetherstonhaugh, A. and Bezzi, A. (1992). Public knowledge and private understanding: Do they match? An example with the water cycle. Paper presented at the 29th international Geological congress, Kyoto, Japan, (August - September 1992). Fordyce, D. (1988). The development of systems thinking in engineering education:An interdisciplinary model. European Journal of Engineering Education, 13, 283-292. Fortner, R.W and Mayer, V.J. (Eds), (1998) Learning about the Earth as a system. Proceedings of the second International Conference on Geoscience Education. Colombus, OH: earth systems education, The Ohio State University. ERIC DocumentED422163. Frodeman, R. L. (1995). Geological reasoning: Geology as an interpretive and historical science. Geological Society of America Bulletin, 107(8), 960-968. Frodeman, R. L. (1996). Envisioning the outcrop. Journal of Geoscience Education, 44, 417-427. Friedman, W. (1982). Conventional time concepts and children’s structuring of time.
In W. Friedman (Ed.), TheDevelopmental Psychology of Time. New York: Academic Press.
Germann, P.J., Haskins, S., & Auls, S. (1996). Analysis of nine high school biology
laboratory manuals: Promoting scientific inquiry. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 33, 475-499.
Gibson, J.J. (1966). The senses considered as perceptual systems. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin. pp. 335. Gilbert, J., Osborne, R and Fensham, P. (1982). Children's science and its consequencefor teaching. Science Education, 66,623-633. Glasersfeld, E. von (1987). Learning as a constructive activity. In: Jannet, C. (ed.) Problems of Representation in Teaching and Learning of Mathematics. Gobert, J. and Clement, J. (1998). Effects of student-generated diagrams versus student-generated summaries on conceptual understanding of causal and dynamicknowledge in plate tectonics. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 36, 39-53.
72
Gobert, D.J. (2000). A typology of casual models for plate tectonics: Inferentialpower and barriers to understanding. International Journal of science Education. 22, 937-977.
Graczyk, S. L. (1993). Get with the system: General systems theory for business offici
School Business Affairs. 59, 16-20. Greeno, J., Collins A., and Resnick, L. (1996). Cognition and learning. In Handbook
of educational psychology. Gudovitch, Y. and Orion, N. (2001). The carbon cycle and the Earth systems -
Studying the carbon cycle in an environmental multidisciplinary context. Proceedings of the 1st IOSTE Symposuim in Southern Europe, Paralimni, Cyprus.
Gudovitch, Y. and Orion, N. (2003). Happs, J. C. (1982). Some aspects of student understanding of two New
Zealand landforms. New Zealand Science Teacher, 32, 4-12. Happs, J.C., (1982). Some aspects of student understanding of rocks and minerals. Working paper of the Science Education Research Unit, University of Waikato, New Zealand. Happs, J.C., (1985). Some aspects of student understanding of glaciers and mountains. Working paper of the Science Education Research Unit, University of Waikato, New Zealand. Herron, M.D. (1971). A critical look at practical work in school science. School
Science Review, 71, 33-40. Hsi, S., Linn, M. C., & Bell, J. (1997). The role of spatial reasoning in engineering
and the design of spatial instruction. Journal of Engineering Education, 86(2), 151-158.
Hume, J. D. (1978). An understanding of geological time. Journal of Geological Education, 26, 141-143. IGEO, (1997). Fortner, R.W and V.J. Mayer, (Eds), Learning about the Earth as a system. Proceedings of the second International Conference on Geoscience Education (1998). Colombus, OH: earth systems education, The Ohio State University. ERIC Document ED422163. IGEO, (2000). Conference proceedings of the 2nd meeting of the International Geosciences Education Organization. Editor: Clark, I. Sydney, Australia. IGEO, (2003). Conference proceedings of the 3rd meeting of the International Geosciences Education Organization. Calgary, Canada.
73
Kali, Y. and Orion, N. (1996). Relationship between Earth science education and spatial visualization. Journal of Research in Science Teaching. 33, 369-391. Kali, Y. and Orion, N. (1997). Software for assisting high school students in thespatial perception of geological structures. Journal of Geoscience Education. 45, 10-21. Kali, Y. and Orion, N. (2004). The Effect of Knowledge Integration Activities on Students’ Perception of the Earth’s Crust as a Cyclic System. Submitted for publication. Kali, Y., Orion, N. and Elon, B. (2003). A Situative Approach for Assessing the Effect of an Earth-Science Learning Program on Students’ Scientific Thinking Skills. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Kapulnick, E., Orion, N. and Ganiel, U. (2004). In-service “science & Technology” training programs: What changes do teachers undergo? Paper accepted for publicationin the NARST annual meeting, Vancuver, USA. King, C. (2000). The Earth’s mantle is solid: Teachers’ misconceptions about the Earth and plate tectonics. School Science Review, 82(298), 57-65. King, C. (2000). Krajcik, J. Blumenfeld, P.C., Marx, R.W., Kristin M.B., & Fredricks, J. (1998).
Inquiry in project-based science classrooms: Initial attempts by middle schoolstudents, 7, 313-350.
Leighton, J, and Bisanz, G. L. (2003). Children's and adults' knowledge and reasoning about the ozone layer and its depletion. International Journal of Science Education, 25, 117-139. LeGrand, H. (1991). Drifting Continents and Shifting Theories. Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge. Lewis, J. P. (1998). Mastering project management: Applying advanced concepts of
systems thinking, control and evaluation, resource allocation, N.Y.: McGraw-Hill. Lillo, J. (1994). An analysis of the annotated drawings of the internal structure of the Earth made by students aged 10-15 from primary and secondary schools in Spain. Teaching Earth Sciences, 19(3), 83-89. Libarkin, J.C., Anderson, S., Author, Boone, W., Dahl, J., and Kurdziel, J. (2004). College students’ ideas about geologic time, Earth’s interior, and Earth’s crust. Journal of Geoscience Education. (in press) Lovelock, J. (1991). Healing Gaia - Practical medicine for the planet. Harmony books, New York. P. 192
74
Marques, L. F., and Thompson, D. B. (1997). Portuguese students’ understanding atage 10/11 and 14/15 of the origin and nature of the Earth and the developmentof life. Research in Science and Technology Education, 15, 29-51
Marques, L. and Thompson D. (1997). Misconceptions and conceptual changesconcerning continental drift and plate tectonics among Portuguese students aged 16-17. Research in Science and Technological Education 15(2), 195. Marques, L. Paria, J. and Kempa R. (2003). A study of students' preconceptions of theorganisazion and effectiveness of fieldwork in earth sciences education. Research in Science and Technological Education 21, 265-278. Mayer, V.J., and Armstrong, R.E. (1990). What every 17 year old should know about
planet earth: The report of a conference of educators and geoscientists. Science Education, 74(2), 155-165.
Mayer, V.J. (1995). Using the Earth system for integrating the science curriculum. Science Education, 79, 375-391. Mayer, V.J. (ed.) 2002. Global science literacy. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.
Mayer, V.J. and Fortner, R.W. 1995. Science is a study of earth. Columbus: Earth systems Education Program, The Ohio State University.
Mayer, V.J. and Fortner, R.W. 2002. A case history of science and science education policies. IN: Mayer, V.J. (ed.) 2002. Global science literacy. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer.
Mayer, V.J. (2003). (Ed.), Implementing global science literacy. Ohio State University. McAuliffe, C., Hall-Wallace, M., Piburn, M., Reynolds, S., and Leedy, D. E. (2000). Visualization and Earth Science Education. GSA Abstracts with Programs, 32, A-266. McPhee, J. (1980). Basin and Range. Farrar; Straus & Giroux: New York. Metzger, E. P. (1992). The strategy column for pre-college science teachers: Lessons
on time. Journal of Geological Education, 40, 261-264 Meyer, W., (1987). Venacular American theories of earth science. Journal of Geological Education, 35:193-196. Midyan, Y. (2003). The effect of in-service training on science teachers attitudes and practical use of the outdoor as a learning environment. Unpublished MSc thesis.Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel. Montagnero, J. (1992). The development of the diachronic perspective in children. In
F. Macar. Time Action and Cognition (pp. 55-65). Amsterdam: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Montagnero, J. (1996). Understanding changes in time. London: Taylor and Francis.
75
Noonan-Pulling, L. C., and Good, R. G. (1999). Deep time: Middle school students’ ideas on the origins of earth and life on earth. Paper presented at the National Association for Research in Science Teaching Annual Meeting, Boston, MA. Nottis, K., & Ketter, K. (1999). Using analogies to teach plate tectonics concepts. Journal of Geoscience Education, 47(5), 449-54. Osborne, R. and Wittrock, M. (1985). The generative learning model and its implications for learning science. Studies in Science Education, 5, 1-14. Ossimitz, G. (2000). Development of Systems Thinking Skills web site: http:www-sci.uni-klu.ac.at/~gossimit. Orion, N. (1996). An holistic approach to introduce geoscience into schools: The Israeli model - from practice to theory. In D. A. Stow & G.J. McCall (Eds.), Geosciences education and training in schools and universities, for industry andpublic awareness. AGID special publication series No 19. Rotterdam: Balkema. Orion, N. (1998). "Earth science education + environmental education = Earth systems education". In Fortner, R.W and V.J. Mayer, (Eds), Learning about the Earth as a system. Proceedings of the second International Conference on Geoscience Education (pp. 134-137). Colombus, OH: earth systems education, The Ohio State University. ERIC Document ED422163. Orion, N. (1993). A practical model for the development and implementation of field trips, as an integral part of the science curriculum. School Science and Mathematics, 93 (6), 325-331. Orion, N. and Hofstein, A. (1994). Factors that influence learning during scientific field trips in a natural environment. Journal of Research in Science Teaching. 31 (10), 1097-1119. Orion, N., Ben-Chaim, D. and Kali, Y. (1997). Relationship between Earth scienceeducation and spatial visualization. Journal of Geoscience Education, 45, 129-132. Orion, N. (2002). “An earth systems curriculum development model”. In Mayer, V. (Ed.), Global science literacy (pp.159-168). Dordecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer. Orion, N., Dubowski, Y. and Dodick, J. (2000). “The educational potential ofmultimedia authoring as a part of earth science curriculum - A case study”. Journal of Research in Science Teaching. 37, 1121-1153. Orion, N. (2003a). “The outdoor as a central learning environment in the global science literacy framework: from theory to practice”. In Mayer, V. (Ed.), Implementing global science literacy (pp.33-66). Ohio State University. Orion, N. (2003b). “Teaching global science literacy: a professional development or a professional change”. In Mayer, V. (Ed.), Implementing global science literacy (pp.279-286). Ohio State University.
76
Orion. N., and Fortner W. R. (2003). Mediterranean models for integrating environmental education and earth sciences through earth systems education. Mediterranean Journal of Educational Studies. 8, (1) 97-111. Oversby, J. (1996) Knowledge of earth science and the potential for its development.School Science Review, 78, 91-97. Pallrand, G. J., & Seeber, F. (1984). Spatial ability and achievement in introductory
physics. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 21, 507-516. Piaget, J. (1970). Structuralism. Basic Books: New York. Pickering, K. and Owen, L. (1994). An Introduction to Global Environmental Issues. Routlege, London and New York. P. 390 Pribyl, J. R., & Bodner, G. M. (1987). Spatial ability and its role in organic chemistry:
A study of four organic courses. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 24, 229-240.
Reynolds, S. J., Piburn, M. D., Leedy, D. E., McAuliffe, C. M., Birk, J. P., & Johnson, J. K. (2002). The Hidden Earth: Visualization of Geologic Featuresand their Subsurface Geometry. Paper presented at the National Associationfor Research in Science Teaching annual meeting, New Orleans, LA.
Riggs, E. M. (2003). Field-Based Earth Science Education and Indigenous
Knowledge: Cognitive and Cultural Elements of Geoscience Education for Native American Communities. Science Education, accepted for publication.
Riggs, E. M., & Tretinjak, C. A. (2003). Evaluation of the Effectiveness of a
Classroom and Field-Based Curriculum in Sedimentation and Change Through Time for Pre-Service Elementary School Teachers. Paper presented at the Geological Society of American annual meeting, Seattle, WA.
Riggs, E. M., & Semken, S. C. (2001). Earth Science for Native Americans.
Geotimes, 49(9), 14-17. Ritger, S. D., and Cummins, R. H. (1991). Using student created metaphors tocomprehend geological time. Journal of Geological Education, 39, 9-11. Roseman, J. (1992). Project 2061 and evolution. In R. Good, J.E. Trowbridge, S.
Demastes, J., Wandersee, M. Hafner, and C. Cummins (Eds.), Proceedings of the 1992 Evolution Education research conference (pp. 214-229). Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University.
Ross, K. and Shuell, T. (1993). Children’s beliefs about earthquakes. Science Education, 77(2), 191-205 Roth, W.M., & Roychoudhury, A. (1993). The development of science process skillsin authentic contexts. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 30, 127-152.
77
Rowland, S. M. (1983). Fingernail growth and time-distance rates in geology. Journal of Geological Education, 31, 176-178. Schoon, K. J. (1989). Misconceptions in the earth sciences: A cross-age study. Paper presented at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, San Francisco, CA. Schwab, J.J. (1962). The teaching of science as inquiry. In J.J. Schwab & P.F.
Brandweine (Eds.), The teaching of science. Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press.
Shymansky, J.A., & Yore, L.D. (1980). A study of teaching strategies, student cognitive development, and cognitive style as they relate to student achievement inscience. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 5, 369-382. Slattery, W., Mayer, V. and Klemm, B. (2002). Using the Internet in earth science systems courses. In V.J. Mayer (ed) Global Science Literacy, pp 93-107. London: Kluwer Academic Publishers Spencer-Cervato, C., and Daly, J.F. (2000). Geological time: An interactive team-oriented introductory geology laboratory. Teaching Earth Sciences, 25 (1), 19-22. Staver, J.R., & Small, L. (1990). Toward a clearer representation of the crisis in science education. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 27, 79-89. Stow D. A. and McCall G.J. (Eds.), (1996), Geosciences education and training in schools and universities, for industry and public awareness. Proceedings of the conference on geosciences education, Southampton, UK, 1993. AGID special publication series No 19. Rotterdam: Balkema Stofflett, R. (1994). Conceptual change in elementary school teacher candidate knowledge of rock cycle processes. Journal of Geological Education, 42, 494-500. Taiwo, A., Motswiri, M., Ray, H., & Masene, R., (1999). Perceptions of the water cycle among primary school children in Botswana. International Journal of Science Education, 21(4): 413-429. Tamir, p. (1989). Training teachers to teach effectively in the laboratory. Science Education, 73, 59-69. Tank, R. (1983). Environmental Geology. New York, Oxford university press. P. 549. Tomorrow 98, (1993). Report of the superior committee on science, mathematics andtechnology education in Israel. Ministry of Education of Israel. pp115. Jerusalem. Trend, R. D. (1997). An investigation into understanding of geological time among 10and 11-year old children, with a discussion of implications for learning of othergeological concepts. Paper presented at 1st International Conference on GeoscienceEducation and Training, Hilo, Hawaii.
78
Trend, R. D. (1998). An investigation into understanding of geological time among 10-and 11-year old children. International Journal of Science Education, 20 (8), 973-988. Trend, R. D. (2000). Conceptions of geological time among primary teacher trainees,with reference to their engagement with geosciences, history and science. International Journal of Science Education, 22 (5), 539-555. Trend, R. D. (2001a). Deep Time Framework: a preliminary study of UK primaryteachers’ conceptions of geological time and perceptions of geoscience. Journal of Research in Science Teaching. Vol. 38 No. 2: 191-221. Trend, R. D. (2001b). An investigation into the understanding of geological time among 17-year-old students, with implications for the subject matter knowledge of future teachers. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 10, 298-321. Trend, R. D. (2002). Developing the Concept of Deep Time. In V.J. Mayer (ed)Global Science Literacy, Ch 13 pp 187-202. London: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Welch, W.W., Klopfer, L.E., Aikenhead, G.S., and Robinson, J.T. (1981). The role of
inquiry in science education: Analysis and recommendation. Science Education, 65, 33-50
Zohar, A. (1998). Result or conclusion? Students’ differentiation between
experimental results and conclusions. Journal of Biological Education, 32, 53-59.
Zwart, P. J. (1976). About time: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin and Nature ofTime. Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company.
