Volume 2, Number 4 - November 2003

THE SCIENCE EDUCATION REVIEW

Ideas for enhancing primary and high school science
education

Excerpts Only:

Science Story
The stories in this regular section of SER may be used to enrich lessons and make them
more interesting.

Shape of the Earth

Early civilizations held a variety of beliefs about the shape of the Earth.

Babylonians considered the Earth and all other things, such as the moon, sun, stars, sky,
and water, to be inside a hollow mountain, with the Earth floating on a sea.

Hindus pictured Earth as being inside an upside-down bowl.

The bowl was carried by elephants standing on the back of a turtle, and the turtle stood on
a snake.

Egyptians thought of the Earth as being part of their god, Keb. Their god of air held the
stars, the jewels of a goddess, in the sky.

Cherokee people believed the Earth to be a four-cornered island, formed by mud rising
from under the waters. The sun disappeared beneath the island each night.

Polynesians viewed the Earth as being in a woven grass basket with a lid. At night, the
weave allowed light to peek through (i.e., the stars), and a hole cut in the top of the basket
by a god let light in during the day.

Contrary to what many think, it was not explorer Christopher Columbus who first
suggested that the Earth is “round.”

Although the very early Greeks thought the Earth was a flat disc floating on water,
Pythagorus proposed a spherical Earth about 540 BC.

About 250 BC, Eratosthenes made a good estimate of the Earth’s circumference. He used
the . . . .

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