This paper addresses the issue of teaching-learning concepts in a case study on earthquakes. Earth Sciences describe geological phenomena by the means of investigating earth events: how has the phenomenon been conceptualized throughout the history of seismology? How can it be conceptualized throughout the unfolding of classroom sequences? Which didactic transposition (Chevallard, 1989) occurs between the two processes? Which efficiency of the teaching practices? We study these research questions by analyzing historical primary sources of the creation of the modern conceptualization of earthquakes. We compare with analyses of 5th grade classroom sequences in order to characterize what students might learn on the elaboration of the seismic phenomenon in situation, and how they can manage it.

To do so, we use the framework of the Joint Action Theory in Didactics (JATD; Sensevy, 2011a, 2011b, 2012). The JATD investigates learning and teaching from a grammatical point of view (Wittgenstein, 1997). This means we favor describing the internal logic of didactic actions to grasp their significance. We use the notion of game and its language game (winning, rules, strategies, stakes, etc.) to do so. Thus, we account for didactic actions by modeling them as games.

In our approach, we model the processes of teaching and learning as learning games, since students have to learn certain pieces of knowledge and teachers have to make the students learn these pieces of knowledge. On the one hand, we characterize each learning game as subject-matter specific;on the other hand, we consider them as sharing a generic grammar, namely that of the didactic game. Then, in a bottom-up way, our model relies, on learning games falling under the rules of the didactic game. In a top-down way, it can be seen as actualizations of the didactic game in learning games. Last but not least, the JATD sees knowledge as a power of acting in a given situation. The theory models knowledge as enacted in epistemic games.

Under such a description, students and teachers take part together to educational activities modeled as learning games embedded in a more general didactic game. The main purpose of learning games is to make oneself gaining new capabilities. These new capabilities are described against the background of an epistemic game or a system of elementary epistemic games.

Our conclusion deals with the comparison of epistemic games crystallized within primary scientific sources and epistemic games enacted from the unfolding of learning games in the classroom.

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