"Why Don't Apple Trees Grow in the Desert?" Exploring Children's Everyday Thinking in Science

• In Event: 66.018 - Everyday Science

Abstract

Reform efforts in science education acknowledge the importance of teachers attending to their students’ everyday thinking. However, as a field, we have limited knowledge of the productive beginnings of scientific understanding in children’s thinking and how these beginnings may be assembled to form coherent explanations of phenomena in the natural world. This study addresses this gap in knowledge by investigating two elementary students’ everyday thinking about why apple trees do not grow in the desert in order to identify the productive beginnings towards understanding the disciplinary core idea of adaptation. This study maps the cognitive resources evident in children’s everyday thinking that they draw on, try out, and refine in pursuit of a coherent explanation of this biological core idea.

Authors

• Melissa J. Luna, West Virginia University

• Ashley N. Murphy, West Virginia University