@article {42, title = {THE INFLUENCE OF EXPERIMENTAL TEACHING ON 5 - AND 7- YEAR OLD CHILDREN{\textquoteright}S CONCEPTS OF THE EARTH AND GRAVITY}, journal = {Journal of Baltic Science Education}, volume = {1}, year = {2002}, month = {October/2002}, type = {Original article}, chapter = {19 - 30}, abstract = {The investigation was aimed to study the influence of age and experimental teaching conditions on the learning of the concepts of the earth and gravity. 47 kindergarteners (age 60-69 months) and 56 first graders (age 85-95 months) were assigned into three groups: model-based, verbal-individual teaching and control groups. Three topics, aimed to treat children{\textquoteright}s preliminary notions and to change children{\textquoteright}s entrenched beliefs, were covered in teaching: the spherical shape of the earth; gravity; the relativity of up-down direction. The results showed that both 5- and 7-years-old children{\textquoteright}s astronomy knowledge was improved due to teaching, regarding of which teaching method was used; however, the condition x age interaction was not significant. Difficulties that occurred during learning and their sources are discussed and conclusions for education are drawn.}, keywords = {earth, experimental teaching, gravity}, issn = {1648-3898}, url = {http://oaji.net/articles/2017/987-1504180627.pdf}, author = {Eve Kikas and Triin Hannust and Hele Kanter} }