Answer:

Understanding what lies beneath the surface of the Earth is particularly difficult for students because it is beyond their direct observational experience. While students will have seen images of erupting VOLCANOES and be aware of earthquakes, the idea that rocks and continents are constantly MOVING as part of enormous but relatively thin tectonic plates is a very demanding one as it creates a substantial mismatch with what we are ABLE to see. This mismatch becomes even more extreme with the issue of time given that the time periods involved in the movement of tectonic plates are huge; way beyond anything students have encountered before. This is in total contrast with the EXTREMELY short (in geological terms) time involved in the ideas they will have of earthquakes and VOLCANIC eruptions.

These ideas are also related to the focus idea Geological time.

Views held by students include:

soil can extend several kilometres under the Earth's surface

lava in volcanoes comes from the centre of the Earth, it is pushed up to the surface

landforms such as mountains, seas and continents do not change. They have always been where they are now

under the Earth there are central fires, magnets and underground seas

the crust floats on a sea of liquid rock, i.e. the Earth contains only molten rock except for the solid crust.

Research: Blake (2005), Dal (2006), Philips (1991)

Explanation: