Challenging pre-galilean misconceptions through alternative visualizations

Estelle Blanquet (1) , Eric Picholle (2)

1 LACES - Laboratoire Cultures, Éducation, Sociétés
2 LPMC - Laboratoire de physique de la matière condensée

While duly Copernican, a significant part of primary school teachers-in-training fail to see the point of the (Galilean) principle of relativity. Two inquiry based teaching sequences involving the notion of reference frame were designed to challenge the students' robust pre-Galilean misconceptions, without mathematical requirements. The first sequence makes use of an artist view ("Framed Earth", by Manchu, 1989) and literary representations of the Earth as seen from a lunar point of view. The second one deals with the succession of seasons through analogical models of the Earth/Sun system. Both sequences were tested among future primary school teachers. Half the cohort was only exposed to the latter sequence while the other half experimented both. Artist representations appear to be an effective way to challenge misconceptions where direct experimentation is not available, such as in astronomy problems.

Mots clés: Frame of reference; Misconceptions; Principle of relativity; Artist view; Science fiction

Domaines: Education; Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Estelle Blanquet, Eric Picholle. Challenging pre-galilean misconceptions through alternative visualizations . 9th Conference of the European Science Education Research Association (ESERA 2011), European Science Education Research Association, Sep 2011, Lyon, France. ⟨hal-01352767⟩