Ready, Set, SCIENCE! Putting Research to Work in K-8 Science Classrooms (2008) / Chapter Skim
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3 Foundational Knowledge and Conceptual Change
3 Foundational Knowledge and Conceptual Change
Pages 37-58
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From page 37... ...
This is good news for educators committed to improving science learning for students. It also raises a number of questions that are explored throughout this book: • How does one recognize the knowledge that children bring to school?
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From page 38... ...
Four Domains of Knowledge These are just a few examples of the fairly broad basic under- 1. Simple mechanics of solid bounded objects standing that young children 2.
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From page 39... ...
This pattern of thinking or applying reasoning in a consistent way within a domain of knowledge but in different ways across domains of knowledge seems to hold true regardless of a child's culture or language. Recognizing that virtually all children arrive at school with these types of sophisticated reasoning skills and knowledge is the first step toward building on and supporting effective, ongoing science learning.
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From page 40... ...
This suggests that children have rudimentary skills for modeling -- a fun damental aspect of contemporary scientific practice -- even before kindergarten. In addition, children are able to understand their own and others' ideas, beliefs, and knowledge, and they have the ability to assess sources of knowledge.
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From page 41... ...
Developing expertise in science means developing a rich, interconnected set of concepts -- a knowledge structure -- that comes closer and closer to resembling the structure of knowledge in a scientific discipline. When students understand the organizing principles of science, they can learn new and related material more effectively, and they are more likely to be able to apply their knowledge to new problems.
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From page 42... ...
Elaborating on a Preexisting Concept The easiest kind of conceptual change involves elaborating on an already exist ing conceptual structure. In biology, for example, students may learn how species' anatomical features (e.g., teeth)
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From page 43... ...
A more productive way to look at these misconceptions is to see them as children's attempts to make sense of the world around them. It is true that science instruction should ultimately aim to have children understand scientific explana tions of natural phenomena, but if one jumps to scientific explanations too fast, Foundational Knowledge and Conceptual Change 43
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From page 44... ...
They may coexist with some accurate ideas about the natural world. Mistaken ideas may be the only plausible way for a child to progress toward a more accurate understanding of scientific concepts.
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From page 45... ...
under varied because, although air is invisible, air pressure pushes environmental conditions, such as heat in every direction with 14.7 pounds per square inch and pressure. The atomic-molecular theory at sea level -- a huge amount of force.
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From page 46... ...
aquarium, several different-sized drinking glasses, Alliyah placed the glass in the aquarium, turned and an empty glass milk bottle. She asked two it upside down, and filled it with water.
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From page 47... ...
demonstration that will add a little more data and She told them that they would explore the issue in help us think about air." depth, amazing themselves and their parents by the The demonstration was designed to show the stuend of the unit by knowing more about the physics of dents that air took up space even though it was invisair pressure than most college graduates do. ible.
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From page 48... ...
A lot of water will go in the glass but the paper Ms. Faulkner asked for someone who had voted will not get wet.
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From page 49... ...
Maybe there's Foundational Knowledge and Conceptual Change 49
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From page 50... ...
Around audience responded with questions, challenges, the room were four very different set-ups, each involv- comments, and suggestions based on what they ing air and water, making use of soda bottles, cups had discovered at their own stations.
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From page 51... ...
In fact, at sea level, there's 14.7 pounds square inch of my body. But here's something really of air pushing on every square inch of your body!
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From page 52... ...
If you took an inflated If instead of using a regular glass, upside down, to balloon that you blew up here, where we're close to pull out of the aquarium, they used a glass that had a sea level, and carried it all the way to Denver, which one-square-inch opening, like a rectangular bud vase, is a mile above sea level, the balloon would be larger the water in the vase would weigh however much a in Denver because there'd be fewer air molecules hit- column of water one inch by one inch weighs. That ting the balloon on the outside, so there would be less depends, of course, on the height of the column of resistance against the molecules inside the balloon." water, because the more water in the column, the A few of the students were beginning to think more it would weigh.
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From page 53... ...
Faulkner said. "He asked if there would be many cubic inches it holds, and then weigh it more air pressure pushing down on the water in a both empty and filled with water.
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From page 54... ...
That's as tion, every single square inch has exactly the same far as it could go." After a long pause he said, "So amount of air pressure on it." how many of Salizar's little cubic inches could we After a moment, Monica asked, "How tall a glass pile up on top of one another? How many would could we pull out of the aquarium?
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From page 55... ...
That is, they will come to understand atomic-molecular theory and use it to explain phenomena like air pressure. The students will also learn to under stand increasingly more complex material explanations.
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From page 56... ...
They could also see that air is compressible or, as they described it, "squish able." They saw that the water entered the glass a little bit -- evidence that the water was forcing the air into a smaller space. They couldn't see molecules, but the idea of air pressure allowed them to make sense of the idea of air getting squished into a smaller space.
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From page 57... ...
The development of early ideas about matter, in which neither mass nor volume is considered a defining property, into a sophisticated understanding of atomic theory clearly requires formal academic instruction. Nor do people spontaneously generate deep scientific understanding of other core domains.
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From page 58... ...
Chapter 3 in Committee on Science Learning, Kindergarten Through Eighth Grade, Taking science to school: Learning and teaching science in grades K-8 (pp.
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