Which conceptions do college students hold about changes to earth and life on earth over time?

Interdisciplinary learning is regarded as very important by many science educators (e.g. Hicks, Fitzsimmons, & Polunin, 2010; Begg et al., 2014). However, science education research is mostly focused within the discipline. This study provides a first step towards understanding students' conceptions of the co-evolution of earth systems and life on earth. First-year students (N=293) in the United States and Germany were asked about their conceptions of seven major evolutionary events in Earth’s history and changes to Earth`s size and continental positions over time through  open-ended surveys. The study adresses the following research questions: 1) What conceptions do students have about large-scale changes to Earth’s biology, the position of the continents, and the size of the Earth over long geological periods of time? 2) What relationships, if any, exist between student paradigms about absolute and relative times and their conceptions of changes (and underlying causes) that occur to life and the planet? 3) How do the conceptions differ between American and German students? The presentation will show the main results of the study. The results indicate the needs for interdisciplinary learning in schools.

References

Bishop, B.A. & Anerson, C.W. (1990). Student conception of natural selection and ist role in evolution. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 27 (5), 415-427

Begg, M. D., Crumley, G., Fair, A. M., Martina, C. A., McCormack, W. T., Merchant, C., Umans, J. G. (2014). Approaches to preparing young scholars for careers in interdisciplinary team science. J Investig Med, 62(1), 14–25.

Conrad, D. (2015). Schülervorstellungen zur Plattentektonik. Ergebnisse einer qualitativen Interviewstudie mit Schülern der neunten Jahrgangsstufe [students` conceptions of plate tectonics. Results of a qualitative interview study with ninth grade students]. Zeitschrift für Geographiedidaktik, 43(3), 175-204.

Dolphin, G., & Benoit, W. (2016). Students’ mental model development during historically contextualized inquiry: how the ‘Tectonic Plate’ metaphor impeded the process. International Journal of Science Education, 38(2), 276–297. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500693.2016.1140247

Hicks, C. C., Fitzsimmons, C., & Polunin, N. V. C. (2010). Interdisciplinarity in the environmental sciences: Barriers and frontiers. Environmental Conservation, 37(4), 464–477.