Drawing has historically been the preeminent way of portraying the observations of the sun. The study of the early stages of the development of astronomical thought and the examination of human graphic expression indicate this. With that in mind, it is interesting to note that young children very frequently draw the sun in their spontaneous depictions and, also, that there are preliminary indications that this fact might be related to their conceptual development. This study examines 279 pictures that children aged 4 to 8 spontaneously depicted, paying particular attention to their solar representations and the relationship that they have with other pictorial elements. The data is also related to children's understanding of the inanimate nature of the sun. The results lend weight to the assumption that children do not draw the sun without intent and allow for adding fresh data to the growing body of research showing the importance of considering young children's graphical expression when it comes to gaining insight into their understanding regarding natural phenomena.

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Previous studies have investigated the development of the concept of being alive at an early age from different methodological perspectives. However, these approaches place excessive emphasis on verbal communication which can lead to limitations when it comes to measure this biological concept. Therefore, a methodology based on the pictorial productions of students is presented. The present research aims to analyze the relationship between the notion of being alive and children 's drawings in a sample of 197 boys and girls of 4-8 years old. For this, a categorization task is performed with images of living and inert beings, followed by the collection of graphic expressions about the plant world. The results point to the fact that students with the most precise knowledge about plants are alive draw more frequently pictorial elements related to life such as sun, water, seeds, clouds and tend to draw more plants types.

Abstract:There is currently a growing theoretical discussion about the foundations that underlie the development of environmental awareness and nature care in early childhood. The aim of this study is to analyze how the environmental concerns of young children emerge and evolve during early childhood and whether these concerns are connected to an understanding of the biological notion of the living being. This study is designed to address methodological limitations of previous studies through a longitudinal axis and an extensive age sample. A sample of 178 children between the ages of four and nine participated at two different testing times for a period of one year. The methodology includes the categorization of various images of living beings and inert entities in order to analyze their understanding of living organisms. Dilemmas involving environmental, moral and socio-conventional situations are presented to examine and compare how young children view transgressions against plant life. The results reveal that young children's judgments about environmental behaviors may arise before the development of an understanding of the concept of the living being. It is therefore proposed that this type of understanding does not support environmental awareness. Previous research indicates that complex biological concepts may be successfully introduced at the preschool age, provided that suitable educational interventions are designed for the initial stages of education. In this regard, there is evidence that a basic understanding of the issue of the ecological interactions among organisms may be achieved in the preschool years.

En recientes investigaciones donde se ha examinado la evolución del pensamiento medioambiental en etapas tempranas existe debate a la hora de establecer si esta moralidad está relacionada o no con el razonamiento biocéntrico. El presente estudio tiene como objetivo analizar esta relación entre el desarrollo del pensamiento medioambiental y la comprensión de la noción de ser vivo en la edad infantil (4-8 años) en una muestra de 197 niños y niñas. Para ello, se realizan tareas individuales de categorización de imágenes de seres vivos e inertes y comparación de imágenes de dilemas de transgresiones morales, sociales y medioambientales. Los resultados de las tareas realizadas apuntan la consideración de que el pensamiento medioambiental puede desarrollarse mucho antes que la adquisición del concepto biológico de ser vivo y va en aumento con la edad.