This article reports a study of children's scientific misconceptions in the teaching of science. It uses the history of a discipline (earth science) and an information processing model of memory proposed by psychologists and physiologists. The historical data show that frameworks of organized specific concepts, ranging from hierarchical structure to transformational structure, are guided by different conceptual knowledge as laws, theories and concepts and metaphysical beliefs, held by scientist or a community of scientists. Furthermore, recent psycological and physiological data also show that concepts in long-term memory storage are linked together, whereas concepts in short-term memory storage are isolated from one another. The facts show that a child who possesses the framework of relevant concepts for explaining events, establishes a hierarchical organized framework of specific concepts in long-term memory and vice versa. Therefore, it is concluded that different conceptual knowledge leads to children's misconceptions. Consequently, the learning process about science should be based on children's existing concepts and metaphysical beliefs.
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