Communicating Astronomy with the Public 2005
Ian Robson, Lars Lindberg Christensen (eds.)
Pages 166-173

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Astronomical Pills: One-Shot Questions about the Universe

Abstract:

In the last two years, the Public Outreach & Education office (POE) of the INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera (Milano, Italy) has carried on an extensive survey (over 1300 tests) on the instinctive ideas that junior and secondary school students (aged 13-19) use when facing astronomical concepts. Students were asked to answer nine closed-answer questions and an open-answer one. They were only allowed a few seconds to make their choices. Our goal was to take a first step into the exploration of the naive view of the Universe developed by students in the different age ranges. In particular we explored the evolution (if any) of some misconceptions with respect to age and other educational factors. In this talk we present a critical review of our work, highlighting the following points: "lessons learned", "what works and what doesn't" and "what can be learned" from our personal experience.

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