Have You Had Any Science Misconceptions?

This week, we reviewed chapters one through nine from our textbook. Our class was engaged in a lesson on science misconceptions that many of our students might have or create. We were given different science topics and were to think of different misconceptions that we had when we were younger or that our future students might have on our given topic. I worked with Keilani and our topics were dinosaurs and violent weather. We had to think of several misconceptions for each and then answer questions about misconceptions.

The misconceptions we came up with for dinosaurs were:

1. Dinosaurs are a made up story/ were never real.
2. Dinosaurs were violent and dangerous.
3. Dinosaurs were able to talk with people like in cartoons.

The misconceptions we came up with for violent weather were:

1. Thunderstorms were going to knock my house down.
2. Rainstorms with intense wind were going to blow me away.

These were just our misconceptions but there are many more that children will create. Here are some common misconceptions among elementary students. 

Here is also a video that discusses some misconceptions on weather and it can be great to use when introducing a weather unit.

We were next asked to answer "What does this say about the misconceptions with which our students will come to our science classroom?" We responded that since many of us had misconceptions when we were younger, children might also create the same misconceptions or different ones. A lot of our misconceptions are created by what others around them believe or by reading fictional books or watching animated tv shows that aren’t realistic. Watching cartoons might result in believing that dinosaurs can actually talk or they can communicate with people. We were also asked "What is the purpose of identifying student misconceptions?" We responded that it is important to identify misconceptions to eliminate any confusion the students may have about that topic and also to make sure students understand each topic correctly. After we finished answering the questions, we presented our misconceptions and answers. It was interesting to see the other groups' topics and the misconceptions that provided. I liked group one's misconceptions about life in the desert, "Animals with fur couldn't live in the desert" and "Animals didn't need water to survive". I have thought this when I was younger as well. I liked group two's response to the question asking for a purpose of identifying student misconceptions. Their response was that it is used to see students' views and perspectives from their prior knowledge before teaching the correct content. It's important to see if they have any knowledge of the content before teaching it. Group three's misconception on the solar system, which was "the sun goes down and the moon comes up and then the sun comes up and the moon comes down." They're saying that they didn't know about the earth's rotation. This is a popular misconception among children and I believed it as well.

We can't stop students from creating misconceptions but we can identify them and let students know that what they are thinking is just a false belief. We can provide activities and lessons to show them why their misconceptions are not true. It is very important that students are understanding the material correctly.