College Students' Alternative Conceptions About Petrified Wood: Implications for the Integration of Geological and Biological Knowledge <p> HR: <span class="hr"> 14:40h<br></span> AN: <span class="an"> ED22E-05 <a href="../absbook/fm03-ED22E.pdf">[PDF]</a><br></span> TI: <span class="ti"> College Students' Alternative Conceptions About Petrified Wood: Implications for the Integration of Geological and Biological Knowledge <br></span> AU: <span class="au"> * Wandersee, J H<br></span> EM: <span class="em"> bio-ed@lsu.edu<br></span> AF: <span class="af"> Louisiana State University, Dept. of Curr. \& Instr., Room 223 Peabody Hall, Baton Rouge, LA 70803 United States<br></span> AU: <span class="au"> Clary, R M<br></span> EM: <span class="em"> geo-ed@louisiana.edu<br></span> AF: <span class="af"> University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Dept. of Geology, Box 44530, Lafayette, LA 70504 United States<br></span> AB: <span class="ab"> An understanding of petrified wood (including formation, composition, and properties) requires a broad and integrated conceptual framework. As a paleontological topic that addresses both geological and biological content, petrified wood is an ideal knowledge probe concept for revealing knowledge gaps and conceptual difficulties that students bring into introductory geoscience and biology classrooms. Our integrated geo-bio education research study addressed both (a) introductory college students' alternative conceptions (ACs) about petrified wood and (b) implications for improving the integration of geological and biological knowledge. We investigated the ACs of students enrolled in a large introductory historical geology course (n=188) at a research university in Louisiana. Having conducted and reviewed alternative conceptions research studies in science education across the past 20 years (Clary \& Wandersee, 2003; Wandersee, Mintzes, \& Novak, 1994), we developed and administered a set of 15 free-response and forced-choice knowledge probes about petrified wood. Resultant findings indicated that the phenomenon of petrified wood was typically addressed several times in our participants' prior K-12 science lessons. However, these college students' geological and biological knowledge of the topic was systemically flawed in four fundamental areas: (a) the geologic time scale; (b) uniformitarianism; (c) biological properties and structure of wood; and (d) fossil-rock-mineral distinction. Our data set advanced the development of a typology for the learning problems that we uncovered for petrified wood. We propose that our typology serve as a heuristic for anticipating students' conceptual difficulties for other biogeoscience topics as well. Our study also documents the need for more geological and biological knowledge integration by bridging college science departmental divides. <br></span> UR: <span class="one"> <a href='http://www.EarthScholars.com' >http://www.EarthScholars.com</a> <br></span> DE: <span class="de"> 0400 Biogeosciences<br></span> DE: <span class="de"> 6605 Education<br></span> SC: <span class="sc"> Education and Human Resources [ED]<br></span> MN: <span class="mn"> 2003 Fall Meeting<br></span></p></body></html>