Description:
The paper is an extended work from a previous study on Taiwanese and German students’ conceptions of the universe (Liu, 2005). The study revealed that students discuss astronomical events and entities based on a mental model of universe and their models of the universe seem to have similar underlying principles with historical ones. In present paper, the author seeks to further analyze historical models of the two different cultural contexts, and elaborate the instructional use of these historical material based on students’ views.