A study on earthquake dynamics related concept of the 3rd graders of elementary school:sampling a school in Taoyuan County

• Main Authors: Lin Hsiao Min, 林曉旻
• Other Authors: 林明聖
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/76507210394345311370

碩士 === 臺北市立教育大學 === 自然科學系碩士班 === 97 === The origins of earthquakes have always been one of the public concerns, plenty of speculations have been evolved since the ancient past, and now, we recognize that earthquakes mostly occur due to plates interactions. Situated on the Circum-Pacific seismic zone, earthquakes occur frequently in Taiwan. However elementary school students have little chance to learn about the phenomena in class. In order to popularize concepts in relation to earthquakes , the research is to explore the concepts of the 3rd graders of elementary school, and the children’s alternative conceptions. The study applies the method focusing on quality, and this research was conducted with individual interviews. The interviewees were 82 schoolchildren of the 3rd graders of an elementary school in Taoyuan County. The outline interview of Earthquake causes related to the concept contains three parts：” earthquake causes”, ” internal structure of the Earth”, and “the concept of proper nouns”. All children have experienced earthquakes , and 80% of interviewed schoolchildren consider earthquakes as the shaking of houses , the ground or common objects.23.2% of them consider plate moving is the main cause of earthquakes. But 91.5% of them have an unclear concept of artificial seismicity. 31.7% of these schoolchildren consider that earthquakes occur probably in every places , and only 1.2% of them consider more than one earthquake could happen in one day. Most of these schoolchildren have alternative conceptions of the Earth internal structure and many respects of earthquakes, including time, location and frequency. About 50% or more schoolchildren don’t have the concept of unfelt earthquake , about 40% or more schoolchildren don’t have the concept of aftershock , and about 60% or more schoolchildren think that intensity has something to do with horizontal distance or vertical distance.