REVIEW OF K-12 TEACHERS' MISCONCEPTION RESEARCH IN EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE

Are K-12 teachers well prepared to teach science content knowledge? Teacher beliefs, experience, and understanding have not yet been studied a great deal in the general educational research literature. Even though there has been interest in misconceptions held by science teachers in the past few years, teachers' understanding and misconception researches in earth science have been limited to several issues. The focus of Earth science education at both the K-12 and collegiate levels has shifted over the past decade from a focus on sub-disciplines to a focus on the Earth as an integrated system (Libarkin, et al., 2005). An increasing number of earth science education studies have been focused on student's understanding of the concept related to Earth System Science such as, water cycles, earth structure, energy, and environmental issues such as, global warming, acid rain, and ozone layer depletion (e.g. Brody, 1993; Dove, 1998; Henriques, 2002; Rule, 2005). The students' misconception researches have lots of implications for teaching and teacher education. Students' Misconception research can remind us of the fact that teachers have played an important role in constructing students' concepts and also can help to complement teachers' pedagogical content knowledge which is to answer the questions “what is important content knowledge to teach?” or “how do teachers teach content knowledge to students?” If we don't understand K-12 science teachers' misconceptions in this field, we don't know what the most effective way to help pre-service teachers is and how we can support current professional development programs for in-service teachers in Earth System Science education. Thus, the purpose of this study is to review research about teachers' misconceptions dealing with important Earth System Science concepts and to find common concepts that we have missed in teachers' misconception research in this field.