What do Children Aged Four to Seven Know about the Digestive System and the Respiratory System of the Human Being and of Other Animals?

The object of this paper is to learn what little children know about the inside of their bodies before they have studied these particular aspects at school. The data for our project were collected by means of drawings made by 342 Spanish children aged four to seven. They were required to depict wher...

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Published inInternational journal of science education Vol. 33; no. 15; pp. 2095 - 2122
Main Authors Garcia-Barros, Susana, Martínez-Losada, Cristina, Garrido, María
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London Routledge 01.10.2011
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Subjects
Anatomy
Anatomy & physiology
Animals
Biology
Biology education
Child Development
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive Development
Cognitive Measurement
Conceptual development
Early Childhood Education
Early years
Education
Elementary school students
Familiarity
Foreign Countries
Freehand Drawing
Human Body
Humanities and Social Sciences
Interviews
Knowledge Level
Metabolism
Science education
Young Children
Spain
Social Sciences & Humanities
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Summary:The object of this paper is to learn what little children know about the inside of their bodies before they have studied these particular aspects at school. The data for our project were collected by means of drawings made by 342 Spanish children aged four to seven. They were required to depict where the food, drink, and air which enter their bodies go. In addition to this, we intend to study how the ideas of children evolve during three consecutive years. For this purpose, a group of 32 subjects was monitored. Our findings show that the children recognise specific organs in their own bodies which they associate with the intake of food and air. Furthermore, they usually extrapolate those organs to other animals they are familiar with. Their ideas about the digestive system are more adequate than the ones about the respiratory system, though their ideas improve as they become older, above all those concerning the digestive system. Taking these findings as a basis, this paper suggests some points to be taken into consideration for teaching purposes.
Bibliography:SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
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ISSN:0950-0693
1464-5289
DOI:10.1080/09500693.2010.541528