INVESTIGATING STUDENTS' IDEAS ABOUT THE FLOW OF MATTER AND ENERGY IN LIVING SYSTEMS

It is fascinating to listen to middle school students talk about food for plants and animals and how that food is used. Some students describe ideas that are essentially correct. Some comments suggest that students are familiar with the content, but their understanding is incomplete or includes inac...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inScience scope (Washington, D.C.) Vol. 35; no. 8; pp. 26 - 36
Main Authors Taylor, Melanie, Cohen, Kimberley, Esch, R. Keith, Smith, P. Sean
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon National Science Teachers Association 01.04.2012
National Science Teaching Association
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
Animals
Biology
Carbon dioxide
Educational aspects
Energy
Food
Food security
Force and energy
Interviews
Matter
Methods
Middle School Students
Misconception
Misconceptions
Photosynthesis
Plants
Plants (Botany)
Sciences education
Scientific Concepts
Secondary School Science
Sugars
Sunlight
Teaching Methods
Thinking Skills
United States
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:It is fascinating to listen to middle school students talk about food for plants and animals and how that food is used. Some students describe ideas that are essentially correct. Some comments suggest that students are familiar with the content, but their understanding is incomplete or includes inaccuracies. Finally, some students have little understanding of the content; however, they use their own experiences to reason logically and generate their own ideas about the content. Beyond just listening, uncovering students' initial ideas and attending to how those ideas change over a unit of instruction are important steps to ensuring that students learn scientifically correct ideas. In this article, the authors describe strategies for eliciting student thinking, common responses to elicitation prompts, and implications for moving students' thinking forward. (Contains 6 figures.)
ISSN:0887-2376
1943-4901
DOI:10.2505/3/ss12_035_08