“…Since many of the processes operate on spatial and temporal scales that cannot be observed directly, they are often misunderstood by students (Dodick & Orion, 2003). Francek (2013) has developed a comprehensive list of school and university students' preconceptions about Earth's structure, historical geology, plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes, rocks and minerals, and weathering and erosion, finding that most alternative conceptions were about plate tectonics. Some examples of the most widely held alternative conceptions about physical geography phenomena include: Earth's crust is several hundred kilometers thick Steer, Knight, Owens, & McConnell, 2005); tectonic plates are underground and are not exposed at the Earth's surface (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2015); volcanoes are found in places that have high temperatures, like at the equator (Dahl, Anderson, & Libarkin, 2005); and weathering and erosion are synonymous (King, 2010).…”