Earth & Space Science: Session 8 Children's Ideas About the
Solar System Below are common ideas children in grades K-6 have
about this topic, compiled from research on children's ideas
about science (see the Session 1 Children's Ideas Bibliography).
Consider what evidence might refute this idea, and why a child
would be likely to believe this? 1. Children's theories of the
origin of the solar system and the Earth include: 1) the solar
system has always been there 2) the Sun collided with another
celestial body to create the planets and 3) the origin of the
Earth involved explosions or collisions of stars and galaxies.
The solar system formed from a cloud of dust and gas that, as
gravity brought the material closer together, began to spin.
This cloud eventually collapsed into a flat disk, and the
planets formed through the accretion, or accumulation, of
matter, which further coalesced into individual planets. The use
of the term "Big Bang" may skew children's ideas about the
Earth's beginnings, but the term do