www.freeducation.co.uk Articles : Science Ideas : CC's views on Science

CC's views on Science

Published on 01/11/09 at 19:07:35 EET by Peter Fogarty

In order to teach effectively an educator must consider how children learn. It is now more apparent that individuals see the world in different ways and we all have different experiences. When looking at leading psychologists work into learning styles, a key theory is social constructivism. This is the idea that pupils cannot learn by knowledge transmission and they need to be actively engaged. This is essential in science because children do not learn by knowledge transmission alone. This theory was developed by Vgotsky, Piaget and Bruner and concurs with the idea suggesting that knowledge not being a true representation of learning and thinking.

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher who lived in 384-322 BC. He studied and wrote a lot about physical sciences and natural logic. A reader in modern times may think that as Aristotle lived such a long time ago his ideas were inadequate and incorrect. The modern reader may well be correct in thinking this as with scientific advanced and research many of his theories have been proved wrong. However it is important to note that Aristotle’s writings were qualitative rather than quantivtive. The fact that much of his writing was based on human thought and not laboratory experiments gives us as teachers a real insight into the human mind when thinking about scientific processes. It also gives us the chance to see where misconceptions can occur.

As Aristotle had an awareness of the world but no measuring devices like clocks, scales and thermometers much of his work was based on his ideas about scientific concepts. As teachers of primary school age children it is important to be aware that most of the children that we teach will not have had the chance to experiment to gain quantitive proof to validate their ideas so therefore like Aristotle children’s scientific ideas may have been constructed based on observations of the world around them.

Aristotle believed that all objects have a natural place and that if an object was removed or displaced from that natural place then it would strive to get back to it. This observational theory can be applied to many everyday occurrences. A good example when considering issues of weight is that if I jumped into the air, although I would continue to accelerate for a short while, I would eventually find myself back on the ground. A child will believe that their natural place is to be in contact with the ground, and that the gravity is the cause of this so called natural place. Children often believe that heavy objects belong on the ground and will construct explanations based on their observations opposed to quantitive facts to explain scientific phenomenon. In the first year I had a discussion with some children about planes. These children were in the reception class and the school was near an airport so the children were familiar with the sight of planes passing overhead. The children acknowledged that planes were large and heavy objects and as a result of their observation wondered how they were able to fly. I believe they thought about this because they assumed that its natural place was on the ground due to its large mass and therefore the plane would be assumed to have a large weight. When we discussed flying the children said birds could fly because they weighed less. On child mentioned that she thought birds could fly because they had wings. I asked the children to think of similarities between a bird and a plane and they realised that both examples had wings. The children then decided that the plane flew because it had wings like a bird. This simple observation is a good example of how children construct scientific ideas. Referring to Aristotle, the dominant idea of the children was that birds could fly because they had wings and therefore the sky was the bird’s natural place. The children used these everyday observations and ideas to come to the conclusion that a plane’s natural place was also in the sky as it too had wings.

In the future when teaching science, no matter what the learning objective of the lesson is, it is important to remember that the aim is to understand. (Harlen, 2000.) The word "understand" is a key term in science learning and teaching. In practice this means that we must have an explanation for what is known and that predictions made on the basis of this explanation fit the available evidence. (ibid) When trying to explain a scientific phenomenon a child makes use of his or her existing ideas and makes predictions based on them. In my experience the existing ideas in children come from observations based on the physical world around them. Children then test this theory to determine whether their predictions fit the facts.

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