Mental Models of the Day/Night Cycle

This article presents the results of an experiment which Investigated elementary school children’s explanations of the day/night cycle. First, third, and fifth grade children were asked to explain certain phenomena, such as the disappearance of the sun during the night, the disappearance of stars during the day, the apparent movement of the moon, and the alteratlon of day and night. The results showed that the ma/orlty of the children In our sample used In a consistent fashlon a small number of relatively well-defined mental models of the earth, the sun, and the maon to explain the day/night cycle. These mental models of the day/night cycle were empirlcaily accurate, logically consistent and revealed some sensltivlty on the part of the children to issues of simpllclty of explanation. The younger children formed initial mental models which provided explanations of the day/night cycle based on everyday experience (e.g., the sun goes down behind mountains, clouds cover up the sun). The older children constructed synthetic mental models (e.g., the sun and the moon revolve around the stationary earth every 24 hours; the earth rotates In an up/down direction and the sun and maon are fixed on opposite sides) which represented attempts to synthesize the culturally accepted view with aspects of their initial models. A few of the older children appeared to have constructed a mental model of the day/night cycle slmllar to the scientific one. A theoretical framework is outlined which explains the formation of inltial, synthetic, and scientific models of the day/night cycle in terms of the reinterpretation of a hierarchy of constraints, some of which are present early in the child’s life, and others which emerge later out of the structure of the acquired knowledge.