However, many students have not developed an appropriate understanding of fundamental concepts from the beginning of their studies, and this shortcoming can interfere with subsequent learning. A familiar example from elementary school is students' understanding of the relationship between the earth and the sun. Students are then faced with the difficult task of deleting a mental image that makes sense to them, based on their own observations, and replacing it with a model that is not as intuitively acceptable. This task is not trivial, for students must undo a whole mental framework of knowledge that they have used to understand the world. The example of the earth rotating rather than the sun orbiting the earth is one of many that teachers refer to collectively as misconceptions.
Preconceived notions are popular conceptions rooted in everyday experiences.
For example, many people believe that water flowing underground must flow in streams because the water they see at the earth's surface flows in streams. Nonscientific beliefs include views learned by students from sources other than scientific education, such as religious or mythical teachings. For example, some students have learned through religious instruction about an abbreviated history of the earth and its life forms. The disparity between this widely held belief and the scientific evidence for a far more extended pre-history has led to considerable controversy in the teaching of science. Conceptual misunderstandings arise when students are taught scientific information in a way that does not provoke them to confront paradoxes and conflicts resulting from their own preconceived notions and nonscientific beliefs.