141-158

• Καμπεζά, Μαρία
• Ραβάνης, Κώστας

A semi-structured interview was individually administered to 76 preschoolers. Theinterview raised questions about the conceptual understanding of certain geophysicalentities. A teaching intervention designed to attempt an understanding of therelationship between them and earth’s surface was implemented with groups of 5-9 children in order to help children construct a more “realistic” model of earth. Theintervention’s effectiveness was consequently evaluated (after two weeks) using aninterview similar to that conducted prior to the intervention. The results of the studyindicated that prior to the intervention many children faced difficulties in descriptiveunderstanding of even familiar geographic features, such as rivers, lakes andislands. After the intervention the majority of children readily conceptualized certainaspects of most of the geophysical entities and correlated them with earth’ssurface. Educational and research implications are discussed.

• Educational sciences
• Earth and related Environmental sciences

• Εκπαίδευση, Προσχολική
• Physical geography

geophysical entities, preschool children’s representations, earth’s surface, implications for teaching, entités géophysiques, représentations d’enfants d’âge préscolaire, surface de la terre, implications pour l’enseignement

Περιέχει εικόνες, πίνακες και βιβλιογραφία, Ειδικό αφιέρωμα: Science Education Research and Theory in the Early Years