No abstract

No abstract

This study examines aspects of children's geographical knowledge of Europe in Estonia between the years 2000 and 2012. The participants were 55 5th-graders in year 2000 and 41 5th-graders in year 2012, with the mean age of 12. Participants completed two tasks, (i) drawing a map of Europe and (ii) filling in country names in a contour map of Europe. Participants also had to state which countries they had visited. Though in 2000 children filled the contour map more accurately than in 2012, some countries (Finland, Norway and the UK) were drawn more accurately in 2012 and the drawing and contour map tasks were highly correlated with each other. Although children travelled more in 2012 compared to 2000, travelling experience had very little effect on children's knowledge of Europe, suggesting that it only plays a marginal role in the formation of place schemas.

Many studies that have been conducted to describe children's knowledge about the Earth and gravity have produced discrepant results. However, as most of these studies have been cross-sectional and they have used different methods for collecting and analyzing data, the question Do children at some point construct internally consistent but incorrect explanations to elementary astronomical phenomena? has not been fully answered. The aim of the study was to further explore this question by examining how children respond to open questions about the Earth and gravity and how these answers change over time. Schoolchildren's (N = 159) answers were examined four times with one-year intervals. It was found that directly after learning the topics in school many children gave synthetic responses and some oscillated between correct and incorrect explanations for a time. By the fourth grade more than half of the children were able to give scientifically accurate answers and good knowledge of facts supported children's ability to correctly generalize their existing knowledge. It was also shown that most children do not construct consistent nonscientific models of the Earth and that only thorough understanding of the discussed phenomena will lead to consistent answering.