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Reasoning with External Representations in Elementary Astronomy Irini Skopeliti (eskopel@phs. uoa. gr) & Stella Vosniadou (svosniad@phs. uoa. gr) Cognitive Science Lab Department of Philosophy and History of Science National and Kapodistrian University of... More

Reasoning with External Representations in Elementary Astronomy Irini Skopeliti (eskopel@phs. uoa. gr) & Stella Vosniadou (svosniad@phs. uoa. gr) Cognitive Science Lab Department of Philosophy and History of Science National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Ano Ilissia, 157 71, Greece Abstract This experiment investigated the effect of the presentation of two culturally accepted external representations of the earth -a map and a globe- on children’s reasoning in elementary astronomy. Eighty four children from grades 1 and 3 were interviewed individually. First, the children were given a pretest which determined their internal representations by asking them to make drawings and play-dough models of the earth and indicate where people live. The children were then divided in two experimental groups: Half of the children were presented with a globe, and half with a map. In both groups the children were asked to answer another set of questions about the earth, in order to determine Less