Time in Geological Explanations as Perceived by Elementary-School Students

AbstractA cross-age interview study with 40 elementary school-age children revealed less disparity between their common sense notions about time and time as used in geological explanations than one might expect. In different interviews, children applied concepts of succession, simultaneity, coseriation, and equal intervals to problems relating time to moving objects, repeating sounds, clocking mechanisms, and relative-age deduction. For example, children from grades 2, 4, and 6 were asked to determine the overall sequence of layers in a compost pile from simulated core samples taken from different depths and positions. Frequently children succeeded with this task, but rarely could a child extend techniques successful in deriving the relative ages of compost layers to the analogous deduction of an overall sequence of rock layers. Analysis of the interview responses suggests that children's concepts about time offer no more of a barrier to learning about the geologic past than concepts about time held by members of other age groups who are ignorant of geologic events and records.KeywordsEducation — elementarygeology teaching