The Brilliance of a child's thoughts - Book Report/Review Example

It is but fitting to first define what the mentioned subject matter is. Astronomy is the oldest science—and the newest (Moche 2009). It is a natural science that involves the erudition of extraterrestrial entities and the marvel that occurs within and outside the planet Earth. However, to keep matters austere, this paper deems to explore children’s perception of astronomy, predominantly the Earth, which is inhabited by every human being. It also endeavors to explore how children acquire knowledge as what Plummer (2007) emphasized that learning progressions illustrate consecutively more superior ways of interpretation and analysis contained in a subject matter realm and can be utilized to imply how children may foster upon their knowledge towards a proficient comprehension.

As what Miell et al (2005) highlighted that the utilization of astronomical perspectives and cultural psychological tools such as notations and artefacts convert the nature of children’s thinking and problem-solving for it does not only improve human thinking through representing, manipulating, and communicating ideas, they alter it. Plummer (2007) further adds that it is significant to remember that shifting along a learning progression is not predictable; rather it is a probable illustration how children may advance with good erudition.

A primary conclusion from Piaget’s work is that children are incapable of thinking in particular ways until certain ages and experience levels (Heck 2003). Likewise, Kuhn (2000) pointed out that the inherent nature of humans to learn which they possess even as a child simply increased the density of naturally occurring experience. Development of the learning progression was organized around the big ideas of celestial motion which refers to central concepts that pull together coherent aspects of a domain that can be introduced in their simplest form at an early age and continually refined, elaborated and extended throughout further education (Plummer 2007).

Conversely, such alternative frameworks offer a basis for children’s understanding and experience which real scientists do, when they invent propositions to make sense of the world (Robson 2006). As every educated grown-up knows, the earth is round and not flat, though much continues to be litigious in physics and astronomy, the reality of this notion seems past argument (Ingold 2011). In spite of that, it took centuries of meticulous investigation, measurement, computation and inference to be able to build the groundwork of what we are already currently familiar with (Ingold 2011).

From the beginning of civilization, the ancient Greeks and Romans were enthralled with the heavens and stars (Siegal 2008). The Romans specifically employed the discovery and observation of heavenly bodies to be able to invent their calendar. Moreover, the Roman’s culture and way of life was founded on the said sightings. Certain astronomers and psychologists played a vital role in establishing the significance of research on what children know about astronomy and geography. Although little work has been done on children’s views of the solar system as a whole, a variety of studies have looked at ideas about the relationship between the Earth, the Sun and the Moon; such studies observed a move in children’s thinking with age from an Earth-centered to a Sun-Centered solar system, however, children even