CHILDRENS KNOWLEDGE OF THE EARTHS SHAPE AND ITS GRAVITATIONAL-FIELD

One hundred and eight children aged between seven and 11 took part in a cross-sectional study of the development of their concepts of the Earth and the direction of its gravitational field. A new form of 'Earth drawing classification' (EDC) was found to be drawn by 36% of the sample, together with the five classifications established in earlier work. This new EDC is conceptually contradictory and appears to be a critical development stage. It is the result of the pupils' attempts to reconcile scientific information with their own common-sense knowledge base. The educational implications of this are discussed. The relationship between the developmental sequence of their Earth drawings and the quality of their human figure drawing was also investigated. It was established that restricted drawing ability does not explain their non-scientific early EDCs.