Thanks to Bob Bee from MAS who posted this on our forum this morning. As silly as it is, I think it's actually a pretty disturbing scenario. To quote Bob:
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One can reasonably assume that the stats would apply to Australian children as well, as the UK and Australian entertainment cultures are much the same.
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http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8101639
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Kids name Buzz Lightyear as first man on moon10:00 AEST Fri Oct 8 2010
By ninemsn staff
A large number of British children believe Buzz Lightyear was the first person to walk on the moon and that Darth Vader's Deathstar from Star Wars is the furthest planet from Earth.
A survey of 2000 children aged 6-12 years in the UK revealed most youngsters have trouble distinguishing between fact and fiction, and lacked basic knowledge of key events in history, London's Telegraph newspaper reports.
One- third of the children surveyed also did not know that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, with nine percent giving credit to Deal or No Deal host Noel Edmonds.
One in six children incorrectly identified US President Barrack Obama as either Mr T from the A-Team, F1 driver Lewis Hamilton or Nelson Mandela.
But while their knowledge of history was somewhat muddled, the children proved to be far more aware of what was happening in the lives of celebrities.
Close to 65 percent of the children knew Britney Spears had shaved her head and two-thirds identified malaria as the illness suffered by X Factor judge Cheryl Cole.
Children's author Christopher Lloyd told the Telegraph there was a lot of confusion among children about historical events.
''Young people have little or no context when it comes to knowledge about the past," Mr Lloyd said.
"Often they know a great deal about a few topics, but seldom do they have any idea of the big picture - Neil Armstrong would not be happy to learn a plastic action figure is getting the credit for first man to step on the moon."
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