A laboratory path for 9-11 year-old children

Several studies have shown that both students of all ages and adults hold many misconceptions about fundamental astronomy concepts. One of the most common misconceived concepts concerns seasons. The main difficulty appears to be the understanding of the mechanism that drives this phenomenon. Since a few years, the Planetarium of Torino offers a 1-hour laboratory to primary school students where it is demonstrated how seasons work. The laboratory consists of a short explanation of the concept and of a practical demonstration of the phenomenon leading to the seasons. Afterwards students are asked to fill in a questionnaire. We aimed to evaluate how successful the laboratory was in terms of short- and long-term understanding of the concept. We focused on questionnaires filled in by 9-11 year-old students who attended the laboratory the last two years. The analysis highlighted a decent comprehension of the phenomenon not only in short-term timescale, but also in the long-term perspective. It pointed out the need to create a learning progression consisting of pre-activity sessions based on sky observations and post-activity sessions performed by the teachers aimed at fixing and fostering the concepts tackled during the entire path. Despite the preliminary stage of this program, our research suggests some crucial interventions to improve the learning process demonstrating the importance of continuing this project in the future.