It is now well established that children construct their own explanations for the easily observed astronomical events before they receive any formal education in astronomy (see Mali & Howe, 1985; Nussbaum & Novak, 1976; Vosnaidou, 1991. It is also generally accepted that childrens notions, or ‘alternative frameworks’ are tenacious and frequently pass into adulthood (Gunstone et al, 1981). Baxter's (1989) survey revealed a hierarchy of alternative frameworks about astronomy that became less naive as age increases, but also revealed that many pupils leaving school at the age of 16 years did not explain the easily observed astronomical events within a post-Copernican framework.

Until the introduction of a National Curriculum in 1989, astronomy rarely featured in English schools’ science curricula (see Lintern-Ball, 1972; Baxter, 1991). Therefore, it is not surprising to discover that many children and adults (Durant, Evans and Thomas, 1989) have concepts about astronomy that bear a closer resemblance to those of the Dark Ages than the 20th-century space age.

For over six years now astronomy has been an established part of English children's school science experience. The survey reported in this paper was carried out to discover if children's alternative frameworks have been affected by the more widespread teaching of astronomy.

Methods of Investigation

This study investigated children's ideas about the same four astronomical domains researched in the 1988 survey (see Baxter, 1989):

• Planet Earth in space.

• Day and night.

• Phases of the Moon.

• The seasons.

The study employed the same astronomy conceptual survey instrument developed for the 1988 survey (see Baxter, 1989, for full details of the survey method).